Embedded Ansible using AWX

Background

In ManageIQ Fine release, it is configured to use Ansible Tower for Embedded Ansible role. Integrating Ansible Tower in ManageIQ requires a tower license.

In Gaprindashvili release of ManageIQ, Ansible Tower is replaced by AWX for implementation of Embedded Ansible. AWX is open source project around the Ansible Tower codebase. Unlike Ansible Tower, AWX doesn't requires license to be added for enabling Embedded Ansible in ManageIQ.

AWX inside ManageIQ Appliance

AWX is deployed as group of containers inside ManageIQ appliance. EVM manage awx containers using the docker-api gem. When Embedded Ansible role is enabled on an appliance, it pulls latest awx docker images and run the containers.

To enlist docker images, type docker images in the terminal of ManageIQ appliance.

# docker images
REPOSITORY                   TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
docker.io/ansible/awx_task   latest              e45b49c04679        4 days ago          1.017 GB
docker.io/ansible/awx_web    latest              2340b2955aa4        4 days ago          989.5 MB
docker.io/memcached          alpine              5c28baaba1e0        13 days ago         7.871 MB
docker.io/rabbitmq           3                   02c3edbcf3d1        3 weeks ago         126.9 MB

These four docker images are necessary to start awx properly. AWX docker containers are linked together. To view the running containers, use docker ps command:

# docker ps
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                     COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                                NAMES
88542be75c63        ansible/awx_task:latest   "/tini -- /bin/sh -c "   3 hours ago         Up 3 hours          8052/tcp                             awx_task
8cfc034ebffb        ansible/awx_web:latest    "/tini -- /bin/sh -c "   3 hours ago         Up 3 hours          0.0.0.0:54321->8052/tcp              awx_web
221989ad1c44        memcached:alpine          "docker-entrypoint.sh"   3 hours ago         Up 3 hours          11211/tcp                            memcached
0c0556dc8277        rabbitmq:3                "docker-entrypoint.sh"   3 hours ago         Up 3 hours          4369/tcp, 5671-5672/tcp, 25672/tcp   rabbitmq

AWX Containers Log

After the containers are started, it is able to see their logs for monitoring awx progress.

To display logs in terminal, type command as follow:

# docker logs -f awx_task

Access AWX Bash

Sometimes, it is need to access bash for the containers like to check status of ansible job. To access the bash of awx_task, run docker exec -it <container id> /bin/bash command.

# docker exec -it 88542be75c63 /bin/bash
[root@awx awx]# ls
beat.db      projects  supervisord.log    venv
favicon.ico  public    supervisord.pid    wsgi.py
[root@awx awx]#

Path /var/lib/awx/job_status/ in container stores the status of tower job.