Embedded Ansible Automation Objects

The implementation of embedded Ansible in CloudForms 4.6 (ManageIQ Gaprindashvili) is based on the AWX project which provides a web-based user interface, REST API, and task engine built on top of Ansible. AWX is the upstream project for Ansible Tower, and so many of the terms and software objects and data structures are common to both.

Note

It is likely that the implementation of embedded Ansible will be changed in a future release of CloudForms / ManageIQ, to reduce the memory and resource footprint that AWX consumes on an appliance with the Embedded Ansible role enabled. The objects described in this chapter may therefore also change or be removed to match the new implementation.

Service Models

It is often useful to be able to access the embedded Ansible service model objects from Ruby automation scripts, although several of the objects are short-lived and deleted once a playbook job has run. Many of the objects map to their equivalents in the AWX object model.

The current AWX-based implementation uses several Automate service models, including the following:

Manager

There is one ManageIQ_Providers_EmbeddedAnsible_AutomationManager object for each embedded Ansible provider in the region.

Typical name: "Embedded Ansible Automation Manager"

Useful Associations: configured_systems, ems_events, ems_folders, provider and tenant

href_slug: providers/<id>

Configuration Script

There is one ManageIQ_Providers_EmbeddedAnsible_AutomationManager_ConfigurationScript object for each provision or retirement script defined for an embedded Ansible service.

Typical name: "miq_Install a Package_provision"

Useful Associations: inventory_root_group and manager.

href_slug: none

Configured System

There is one ManageIQ_Providers_EmbeddedAnsible_AutomationManager_ConfiguredSystem object for each managed node that a job has run on (the host for the job).

Has no name attribute but typical hostname: "192.168.1.66"

Useful Associations: manager

href_slug: none

Machine Credential

There is one ManageIQ_Providers_EmbeddedAnsible_AutomationManager_MachineCredential object per defined machine credential.

Typical name: "CFME Default Credential"

Associations: none

href_slug: authentications/<id>

Inventory Root Group

There is one ManageIQ_Providers_AutomationManager_InventoryRootGroup object for each dynamic inventory created.

Typical name: "miq_Install a Package_provision_70"

Useful Associations: configuration_scripts, hosts, manager and vms

href_slug: none

Playbook (aka Configuration Script Payload)

There is one ManageIQ_Providers_EmbeddedAnsible_AutomationManager_Playbook object for each playbook imported from a configured SCM repository.

Typical name: "playbooks/configure_vm_network_and_ip.yml"

Useful Associations: inventory_root_group and manager.

href_slug: configuration_script_payloads/<id>

Configuration Script Source

There is one ManageIQ_Providers_EmbeddedAnsible_AutomationManager_ConfigurationScriptSource object for each configured SCM repository.

Typical name: "pemcg's Ansible Playbooks"

Useful Associations: manager

href_slug: configuration_script_sources/<id>

Job

There is one ManageIQ_Providers_EmbeddedAnsible_AutomationManager_Job object created for each job that’s run. The object derives from an OrchestrationStack object, and has a useful job.stdout virtual column that contains the job's text output.

Typical name: "miq_Add a VM to Satellite 6_provision"

Useful Associations: ext_management_system, parameters and resources.

href_slug: orchestration_stacks/<id>

Job Parameter

There is one OrchestrationStackParameter object created for each parameter passed into a job. Each object has a value attribute that contains the parameter's value.

Typical name: "miq_provision_request_id"

Useful Associations: stack (the job)

href_slug: none

Job Resource

There is one OrchestrationStackResource object for each playbook that a job runs. Each object has a resource_category attribute of "job_play" and a resource_status attribute that indicates the play's status (i.e "successful")

Typical name: "Acquire and Set an IP Address"

Useful Associations: stack (the job)

href_slug: none

Service Template Ansible Playbook

There is one ServiceTemplateAnsiblePlaybook object for each service catalog item of type 'Ansible Playbook'.

This object's options hash contains the default configuration settings for the service, for example:

$evm.root['service_template_ansible_playbook'].options[:config_info] = {:provision=>{:repository_id=>"14", :playbook_id=>"197", :credential_id=>"11", :hosts=>"localhost", :verbosity=>"0", :log_output=>"on_error", :extra_vars=>{:package=>{:default=>"from_service"}}, :execution_ttl=>"", :become_enabled=>true, :dialog_id=>"31", :fqname=>"/Service/Generic/StateMachines/GenericLifecycle/provision"}, :retirement=>{:remove_resources=>"yes_without_playbook", :verbosity=>"0", :log_output=>"on_error", :fqname=>"/Service/Generic/StateMachines/GenericLifecycle/Retire_Basic_Resource"}}   (type: Hash)

Useful Associations: services and tenant

href_slug: service_templates/<id>

Service Ansible Playbook

There is one ServiceAnsiblePlaybook object for each ordered service of type 'Ansible Playbook'.

This object's options hash contains the default configuration settings for the service, the dialog options that were input when ordered, and the provision job options, for example:

$evm.root['service_ansible_playbook'].options[:config_info] = {:provision=>{:repository_id=>"14", :playbook_id=>"214", :credential_id=>"8", :hosts=>"localhost", :verbosity=>"0", :log_output=>"on_error", :extra_vars=>{}, :execution_ttl=>"", :become_enabled=>false, :dialog_id=>"40", :fqname=>"/Service/Generic/StateMachines/GenericLifecycle/provision"}, :retirement=>{:remove_resources=>"yes_without_playbook", :verbosity=>"0", :log_output=>"on_error", :fqname=>"/Service/Generic/StateMachines/GenericLifecycle/Retire_Basic_Resource"}}   (type: Hash)
$evm.root['service_ansible_playbook'].options[:dialog] = {"dialog_param_firewall_group"=>"46", "dialog_param_go_name"=>"rhv-net", "dialog_param_description"=>"RHV Network", "dialog_param_network"=>"172.16.1.0/24"}   (type: Hash)
$evm.root['service_ansible_playbook'].options[:provision_job_options] = {"hosts"=>"localhost", "extra_vars"=>{"firewall_group"=>"46", "go_name"=>"rhv-net", "description"=>"RHV Network", "network"=>"172.16.1.0/24"}}   (type: ActiveSupport::HashWithIndifferentAccess)

Useful Associations: root_service, service_resources, service_template and tenant

href_slug: services/<id>

Summary

This chapter describes some of the service model objects that are involved in running an embedded Ansible playbook or method.