Build an execution environment

Task 2: Build an execution environment

Prerequisites

  • Install ansible-builder: on RHEL this is provided by the AAP repo, on Fedora you will need “pip install ansible-builder”, it’s recommended to use a virtual environment in this case.

Tasks

Build Execution Environment

  • Overview: Create an execution environment with the following requirements

    • Base image is ee-supported-rhel8
    • Add a community collection e.g. containers.podman
    • Add a supported content collection e.g. azure.azcollection
    • Experiment with the other options, e.g. adding an RPM or Python package

  • Create the needed definition files to build the EE according to the specs above.

    • You can adapt the files from here (from the Simple EE example linked to in the Tips section).

    • In your EE definition file set the base image to (Red Hat Registry access required)

      build_arg_defaults:
EE_BASE_IMAGE: 'registry.redhat.io/ansible-automation-platform-22/ee-minimal-rhel8'

    • Use ansible-builder to build the EE, for example:

      ansible-builder -f /path/to/your/definition.yml -t yourname:1.0.0

Use the Execution Environment

  • Configure ansible-navigator to use the previously created EE either by specifying it on the command line or by creating an ansible-navigator.yml configuration file (you have one from Track 1).
  • Inspect your EE by using ansible-navigator, e.g. to get the list of included collections, ansible versions etc.
  • Run a playbook with your EE and verify everything works as expected. Why not deploy Azure objects?
    • Use environment variables to provide your Azure credentials. Red Hatters can get Azure credentials from RHPDS’ Azure Blank Open environment.
    • Write a playbook using the azure.azcollection to create objects in Azure
    • you can find an example playbook in the playbook-infra project

In a production environment we typically recommend to use the ee-minimal-rhel8 as a base image and only add the collections we specifically need. To make this lab not too complex, we decided to use the EE supported as a base image though.

Goal

  • Build an EE adding two collections
  • Use your execution environment to create an instance in Azure
  • Don’t forget to remove the instance and all associated resources - you can actually just remove the resource group which will remove all objects created within.

Tips