Ceenter

Table of Contents

• Ceenter
  • Ansible naming convention
    • Ansible Tower Job Template naming
    • Ansible Playbook naming
    • Ansible Playbook Variable names
    • Ansible role variable names
  • Local setup
    • Prerequisites
    • Install Ansible collections
    • Create VM on GCP
    • Manual Tower setup
      • Use awx cli tool
      • Setup Job Templates
        • Create GCP VM
        • Create OCP Project
        • Delete OCP Project
  • Environment Setup
    • OpenShift setup
  • Api Caller
    • Example API Call to Ansible Tower

Ceenter is a project to demonstrate Ansible Tower IaaS capabilities.

Following scenarios are implemented:

• RHV VM
  • Create
  • Delete
• GCP VM
  • Create
  • Delete
• OpenShift Project
  • Create
  • Delete

Ansible naming convention

Ansible Tower Job Template naming

Job Template names are in form of:

---

Example: Create VM on GCP platform

Service-VM-GCP-Create

Job Template must accept extra variables defined as part of API Caller.

Ansible Playbook naming

Playbook names are in form of:

---.yml

Example: Create VM on GCP platform

Service-VM-GCP-Create.yml

Ansible Playbook Variable names

Ceenter metadata variables for VM Creation:

variable	description	default value	options	purpose	status
vm_flavor	VM Flavor	Small	Small, Medium, Large	Prefix for VM related roles	implemented
vm_cpu	Number of virtual CPUs (exclusive with vm_flavor)	1	INT	Prefix for VM related roles	implemented
vm_memory	memory in GB (exclusive with vm_flavor)	1	INT	Prefix for VM related roles	implemented
vm_disk_size	disk size	30	INT	Prefix for VM related roles	implemented
vm_OS	OS type	centos8	rhel7, rhel8, centos7, centos8	Prefix for VM related roles	TBD
vm_storage_flavor	performance of vm storage	standard	standard, performance	Prefix for VM related roles	TBD
ceenter_vm_region	geographical region	standard	standard, performance	Prefix for VM related roles	TBD

Ansible role variable names

Role variable names should be in form: <role_name>_*, so for example disk size in gcp_vm role will be defined as gcp_vm_disk_size_gb.

Local setup

Steps to prepare local environment.

Prerequisites

ansible 2.9+

Install Ansible collections

Configure ansible.cfg: Download ansible-hub token from https://cloud.redhat.com/ansible/automation-hub/token

Save token locally to ~/.ansible/galaxy_token.

Install dependent collections

ansible-galaxy collection install -r ./collections/requirements.yml

Detailed blog about setting up env for automation-hub collections.

Install google.cloud requirements:

yum install python-requests
pip install requests google-auth

Download GCP credentials.

Create VM on GCP

ansible-playbook Service-GCP-VM-Create.yml

Manual Tower setup

Configure GCP:

• Create GCP account
• Create keys for ssh access to GCP VMs
  • Generate SSH Keys ssh-keygen -t rsa -f ~/.ssh/gcloud-ansible -C ansible

Create Credentials:

• GCP connection
• GCP machine type for ssh access
• Github
• RHV

Create Project:

• Ceenter Repo (https://github.com/ceenter/ceenter.git)

Create Job Templates:

• GCP Create VM
• RHV Create VM

Authenticate Ansible Tower to Automation-hub:

• Retrieve token at https://cloud.redhat.com/ansible/automation-hub/token
• Update token in Ansible Tower: https://www.ansible.com/blog/installing-and-using-collections-on-ansible-tower

Use awx cli tool

Install awx https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-tower/latest/html/towercli/usage.html#installation.

Tool awx doesn't have any local config file to store credentials, but you can export your credentials in local file.

You can use simple script to auth to Tower and use save auth key:

./utils/awx_login.py <TOWER_HOST> <TOWER_USER> <TOWER_PASSWORD> > ~/.awx_conf.env
source ~/.awx_conf.env
# Test config
awx activity_stream list

or create file manually:

cat > ~/.awx_conf.env <<EOF
export TOWER_HOST=${TOWER_HOST}
export TOWER_VERIFY_SSL=False
export TOWER_USERNAME=${TOWER_USERNAME}
export TOWER_OAUTH_TOKEN=${TOWER_OAUTH_TOKEN}
EOF

Setup Job Templates

Create GCP VM

Create Job Template:

name: GCP VM Create
description: Create VM on GCP
job_type: Run
inventory: localhost
project: Ceenter Repo
Playbook: Service-VM-GCP-Create.yml
credentials: ['gcp-jveverka']
instance_group: Container with google auth

Create Survey for Job Template:

Parameters: {"vm_name":"mytest","vm_flavor":"Small","vm_memory":2,"vm_cpu":1,"vm_disk_size":20}

Create OCP Project

name: OCP Project Create
description: Create OCP Project
job_type: Run
inventory: localhost
project: Ceenter Repo
Playbook: Service-OCP-Project-Create.yml
credentials: ['Ceenter OCP Project Manager']
instance_group: Container with [openshift pip dependencies](https://github.com/ceenter/ansible-runner-images)

Create Survey for Job Template:

Parameters: {"ocp_project_name":"ceenter_test","ocp_project_display_name":"Test project for Ceenter"}

Delete OCP Project

name: OCP Project Delete
description: Delete OCP Project
job_type: Run
inventory: localhost
project: Ceenter Repo
Playbook: Service-OCP-Project-Delete.yml
credentials: ['Ceenter OCP Project Manager']
instance_group: Container with [openshift pip dependencies](https://github.com/ceenter/ansible-runner-images)

Create Survey for Job Template:

Parameters: {"ocp_project_name":"ceenter_test"}

Environment Setup

OpenShift setup

Additional Container Group on OpenShift

• oc create -n tower -f ocp-setup/role-pod-manager.yml
• oc create -n tower -f ocp-setup/sa-tower-container-group.yml
• oc create -n tower -f ocp-setup/rb-tower-container-group.yml

Download serviceaccount credentials, e.g. from ui download serviceaccount kubeconfig.

Customize Pod Spec on Instance Group

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  namespace: tower
spec:
  containers:
    - image: quay.io/ceenter/ansible-runner-google:1.4.6
      tty: true
      stdin: true
      imagePullPolicy: Always
      args:
        - sleep
        - infinity

Container image is build in ansible-runner-images repository.

Api Caller

The API Caller is an example GUI which helps generating the propoer API syntax. Ultimately it may also execute the API call, but not at this stage yet. The metdata for API Caller is under the api-caller folder. The first file is the menu-map.json where the interactive menu options are defined.

Example API Call to Ansible Tower

Launch Job Service-VM-GCP-Create with curl:

curl -k -X POST --user admin:<PASSWORD> https://<TOWER_URL>/api/v2/job_templates/Service-VM-GCP-Create/launch/

Query Job Template Survey fields:

curl -k -X GET --user admin:<PASSWORD> -H "Content-Type: application/json" ${TOWER_HOST}/api/v2/job_templates/Service-VM-GCP-Create/survey_spec/