Exercise 1.0: Exploring the lab environment¶

Before you get started, please join us on slack! Click here to join the ansiblenetwork slack. This will allow you to chat with other network automation engineers and get help after the workshops concludes.

Objective¶

Explore and understand the lab environment.

These first few lab exercises will be exploring the command-line utilities of the Ansible Automation Platform. This includes

ansible-navigator - a command line utility and text-based user interface (TUI) for running and developing Ansible automation content.

ansible-core - the base executable that provides the framework, language and functions that underpin the Ansible Automation Platform. It also includes various cli tools like ansible, ansible-playbook and ansible-doc. Ansible Core acts as the bridge between the upstream community with the free and open source Ansible and connects it to the downstream enterprise automation offering from Red Hat, the Ansible Automation Platform.

Execution Environments - not specifically covered in this workshop because the built-in Ansible Execution Environments already included all the Red Hat supported collections which includes all the network collections we use for this workshop. Execution Environments are container images that can be utilized as Ansible execution.

ansible-builder - not specifically covered in this workshop, ansible-builder is a command line utility to automate the process of building Execution Environments.

If you need more information on new Ansible Automation Platform components bookmark this landing page https://red.ht/AAP-20

Note

Guide¶

Step 1 - Connecting via VS Code¶

Note

It is highly encouraged to use Visual Studio Code to complete the workshop exercises. Visual Studio Code provides:

A file browser

A text editor with syntax highlighting

A in-browser terminal

Direct SSH access is available as a backup, or if Visual Studio Code is not sufficient to the student. There is a short YouTube video provided if you need additional clarity: Ansible Workshops - Accessing your workbench environment.

Connect to Visual Studio Code from the F5 UDF components page . The password is provided below the WebUI link.

Type in the provided password to connect.

Open the User Directory directory in Visual Studio Code, (File –> Open Folder –> Ensure that the user rhel-user is selected or part of the path and then Click OK).

This would be /home/rhel-user once connected it will give a Trust Warning Check the box and click Yes, I trust the authors

From here on the left pane you can click on the individual exercise folders and then click on the yaml files to check the content of the files.

Step 2 - Using the Terminal¶

Open a terminal in Visual Studio Code (Terminal –> New Terminal)

Navigate to the f5-bd-ansible-labs and the 101-F5-Basics directories on the Ansible control node terminal and run the pwd command to verify you are in the correct directory
```
cd ~/f5-bd-ansible-labs/101-F5-Basics/
```
```
pwd
```

The Output should look something like
[rhel-user@ede... ~]$ ~/f5-bd-ansible-labs/101-F5-Basics/
[rhel-user@ede... 101-F5-Basics]$ pwd
/home/rhel-user/f5-bd-ansible-labs/101-F5-Basics
[rhel-user@ede... 101-F5-Basics]$
~ - the tilde in this context is a shortcut for the home directory, i.e. /home/student1

cd - Linux command to change directory

pwd - Linux command for print working directory. This will show the full path to the current working directory.

Step 3 - Examining Execution Environments¶

Run the ansible-navigator command with the images argument to look at execution environments configured on the control node:
ansible-navigator images
Note: The output you see might differ from the above output
This command gives you information about all currently installed Execution Environments or EEs for short. Investigate an EE by pressing the corresponding number.
Selecting 2 for Ansible version and collections will show us all Ansible Collections installed on that particular EE, and the version of ansible-core:
When completed keep pressing ESC many times or type :quit to quit out of the ansible-navigator menus

Step 4 - Examining the ansible-navigator configuration¶

Either use Visual Studio Code to open or use the cat command to view the contents of the ansible-navigator.yml file. The file is located in the home directory:

cat ~/.ansible-navigator.yml

Output should look something like

---
ansible-navigator:
ansible:
   inventory:
      entries:
      - /home/rhel-user/lab_inventory/hosts
execution-environment:
   container-engine: podman
   enabled: true
   image: quay.io/f5_business_development/f5_ee:latest
   #image: quay.io/f5_business_development/f5_ee_static_build:latest  # This is a backup image with a static build of collections known to work
   pull:
      policy: missing
   volume-mounts:
   - dest: /tmp/f5/
      src: /f5/code-output/
   - dest: /usr/share/nginx/html/asm-profiles
      src: /usr/share/nginx/html/asm-profiles

Note the following parameters within the ansible-navigator.yml file:
- inventories: shows the location of the ansible inventory being used
- execution-environment: where the default execution environment is set
- volume-mounts: where local system folders are being passed through to the cotainer envrionemnt to migrate items outside of the container.
For a full listing of every configurable knob checkout the documentation

Step 5 - Examining inventory¶

The scope of a play within a playbook is limited to the groups of hosts declared within an Ansible inventory. Ansible supports multiple inventory types. An inventory could be a simple flat file with a collection of hosts defined within it or it could be a dynamic script (potentially querying a CMDB backend) that generates a list of devices to run the playbook against.

In this lab you will work with a file based inventory written in the ini format. Either use Visual Studio Code to open or use the cat command to view the contents of the ~/lab_inventory/hosts file.
cat ~/lab_inventory/hosts
[all:vars]
ansible_user=rhel-user
ansible_password=Ansible123!
ansible_port=22
ansible_become_pass="{{ ansible_password }}"
lab_version="udf"
ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/bin/python3

[lb]
f5 ansible_host=10.1.1.7 ansible_user=admin private_ip=10.1.20.30 ansible_password=Ansible123! server_port=443

[control]
ansible ansible_host=10.1.1.4 ansible_user=rhel-user private_ip=10.1.1.4

[web]
node1 ansible_host=10.1.1.5 ansible_user=rhel-user private_ip=10.1.10.5
node2 ansible_host=10.1.1.6 ansible_user=rhel-user private_ip=10.1.10.6

Step 6 - Understanding inventory¶

In the above output every [ ] defines a group. For example [web] is a group that contains the hosts node1 and node2.

Note: A group called all always exists and contains all groups and hosts defined within an inventory.

We can associate variables to groups and hosts. Host variables are declared/defined on the same line as the host themselves. For example for the host f5:

f5 ansible_host=34.199.128.69 ansible_user=admin private_ip=172.16.26.136 ansible_password=admin

f5 - The name that Ansible will use. This can but does not have to rely on DNS

ansible_host - The IP address that ansible will use, if not configured it will default to DNS

ansible_user - The user ansible will use to login to this host, if not configured it will default to the user the playbook is run from

private_ip - This value is not reserved by ansible so it will default to a host variable. This variable can be used by playbooks or ignored completely.

ansible_password - The password ansible will use to login to this host, if not configured it will assume the user the playbook ran from has access to this host through SSH keys.

Does the password have to be in plain text? No, Red Hat Ansible Tower can take care of credential management in an easy to use web GUI or a user may use ansible-vault

Step 7 - Using ansible-navigator to explore inventory¶

We can also use the ansible-navigator TUI to explore inventory.

Run the ansible-navigator inventory command to bring up inventory in the TUI:
ansible-navigator inventory
ansible-navigator tui¶
Pressing 0 or 1 on your keyboard will open groups or hosts respectively.

ansible-navigator groups¶
Press the Esc key to go up a level, or press corisponding number to zoom in to a host (within a group or within hosts):

ansible-navigator host¶
Quit the TUI using the :quit command or continue pressing ESC

Complete¶

You have completed lab exercise 1!

You now understand:

How to connect to the lab environment with Visual Studio Code

How to explore execution environments with ansible-navigator

Where the Ansible Navigator Configuration (ansible-navigator.yml) is located

Where the inventory is stored for command-line exercises

How to use ansible-navigator TUI (Text-based user interface)

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