Getting started with Ansible Tower in IBM Cloud

Before you begin

• You must have a Linux system with OpenShift command-line tool (oc) installed to run the installer.
• Your target cluster must be an OpenShift cluster where IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management is installed. For more information, see Getting started with IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management.
• You must have administrator privileges for the account that is used to run the OpenShift installer (cluster-admin role is required).
• Download the IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management 2.1 part numbers from IBM Passport Advantage.
  • Red Hat Ansible Tower key - CC7X6EN (temporary-tower-license.txt)
  • Automation navigation for IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management 2.1 - CC7X4EN (automation-navigation-updates.sh)
• (Optional) Earlier part numbers are also available
  • IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management 2.0 - Red Hat Ansible Tower key - CC737EN
  • IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management 2.0 - Automation navigation for IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management 2.0 - CC734EN
  • IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management 1.3 - Red Hat Ansible Tower key - CC79QEN
  • IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management 1.3 - Automation navigation for IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management 1.3 - CC66KEN

Installing Red Hat Ansible Tower

1. Log in to OpenShift as an administrator from your Linux system.

   oc login --token=<token> --server=<URL>
   

   For example:

   oc login --token=EtZqGLpwxpL8b6CAjs9Bvx6kxe925a1HlB__AR3gIOs --server=https://c100-e.us-east.containers.cloud.ibm.com:32653
   

   You can find the oc login for your OpenShift cluster where IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management is installed by using these steps:

   a. Log in to IBM Cloud: https://cloud.ibm.com/
   b. Select OpenShift>Clusters and select the cluster where IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management is installed.
   c. Log in to the OpenShift web console and select the IAM <yourID> menu, then select "Copy Login Command".
   d. Click the Display Token link.
   e. Copy the provided oc login ... CLI command to log in to OpenShift.

2. On your Linux system, download the installation package by running the following command:

   wget https://releases.ansible.com/ansible-tower/setup_openshift/ansible-tower-openshift-setup-latest.tar.gz
   

3. Extract the package by running the following commands:

   tar xvf ansible-tower-openshift-setup-latest.tar.gz
   

   cd ansible-tower-openshift-<version_from_step2>
   

4. To install Ansible, run the following command:

   sudo yum install ansible
   ```    Note: Ensure the ansible version installed is the required version for the setup bundle you downloaded, see the [Ansible Software Requirements](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-tower/3.7.1/html/installandreference/requirements_refguide.html#ansible-software-requirements) in the Ansible Tower documentation.  
   Run this command to check ansible version: ``<ansible --version>``.
   
   

5. Create an ansible-tower namespace for your Red Hat Ansible installation in your OpenShift cluster.

   oc new-project ansible-tower
   

6. (Optional) Switch to the new project/namespace and add an application:

   oc project ansible-tower 
   ```    ```
   oc new-app centos/ruby-22-centos7~https://github.com/openshift/ruby-ex.git
   

7. Create a pvc named postgresql. Sample PVC resource file named postgres-nfs-pvc.yaml

   apiVersion: v1
   kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
   metadata:
     annotations:
     labels:
     name: postgresql
   spec:
     accessModes:
     - ReadWriteOnce
     resources:
       requests:
         storage: 10Gi
     storageClassName: ibmc-block-gold
   

   Note: Change the storage class according to your OpenShift Storage Class listing.

   oc create -f postgres-nfs-pvc.yaml
   

8. Ensure that the pvc is created.

   oc get pvc
   

9. Modify the Ansible playbook to use insecure login.

   sed -i "s/{{ openshift_skip_tls_verify | default(false)/{{ openshift_skip_tls_verify | default(true)/g" roles/kubernetes/tasks/openshift_auth.yml
   

10. Run the installation command to complete the setup:

    ./setup_openshift.sh -e openshift_host=https://<host>:<port> -e openshift_project=ansible-tower -e openshift_user=<openshift_user> -e openshift_token=<openshift-token>  
    -e admin_password=<admin-pass> -e secret_key=<my-secret> -e pg_username=<pg_username> -e pg_password=<pg_password> -e rabbitmq_password=<rabbitmq-pass> -e 
    rabbitmq_erlang_cookie=<rabbiterlangapwd>
    

    • Modify the values for the following parameters: openshift_host, openshift_user, openshift_token, admin_password, secret_key, pg_username, pg_password, rabbitmq_password, and rabbitmq_erlang_cookie.
      Where
    • <host> is the cluster_kube_apiserver_host, for example https://api.green.coc-ibm.com:6443 .
    • <port> is the cluster_kube_apiserver_port.
    • To find the <host> and <port> variables, run this command: kubectl get configmap -n kube-public -o yaml.
    • <openshift_user> is the OpenShift admin user.
    • <openshift-token> is the token that you obtain by running this command oc whoami -t or login to the OpenShift console and click the user's Copy Login Command.
    • <admin-pass> is the password that you want to set for Ansible Tower admin user.
    • <my-secret> is the secret that you want to set. It can be a base64 encoded string.
    • <pg_username> is the username for postgresql.
    • <pg_password> is the password for postgresql.
    • <rabbitmq_pass> is the password for Rabbit MQ.
    • <rabbiterlangapwd> is the Rabbit MQ erlang cookie.

11. Log in to Ansible Tower and import the license from the temporary-tower-license.txt downloaded in Before you begin section. The first time you log in to Ansible Tower, the license screen is automatically displayed:

    http://<ansible-tower-host>
    

    Run this command to locate the value:

    oc get route -n ansible-tower
    

    {: codeblock} The default admin-username is admin and password is the password you set for the admin_password parameter during installation, in the setup_openshift.sh command.

Integrate Ansible Tower with IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management

Enable navigation to Red Hat Ansible Tower within the IBM Cloud Pak console.

Complete the following steps on a Linux system. These steps enable navigation to Ansible from the IBM Cloud Pak​​ console:

1. Obtain the menu customization script, automation-navigation-updates.sh. See Before you begin. You must run the script on a Linux operating system.

2. Install and authenticate kubectl. For more information, see Installing the Kubernetes CLI (kubectl)).

3. Download and configure the JQ tool by using the following commands:

   wget -O jq https://github.com/stedolan/jq/releases/download/jq-1.6/jq-linux64
   
   chmod +x ./jq
   
   mv jq /usr/bin
   

   For more information, see Download jq.

4. Copy the automation-navigation-updates.sh script to a directory location. Set the file permissions on the script and run the script to enable navigation to your Ansible instance:

   chmod 755 ./automation-navigation-updates.sh
   
   ./automation-navigation-updates.sh -a <name>
   

   where <name> is the name that is used for the openshift_project paramater in step 10.
   For example, ./setup_openshift.sh -e openshift_project=ansible-tower. In this example, ansible-tower is the name that is used.

5. Verify that the Ansible Tower instance is in the IBM Cloud Pak​​ console navigation menu. From the IBM Cloud Pak​​ navigation menu, click Automate infrastructure > Ansible automation.

You have now successfully installed Red Hat Ansible Tower and integrated it with IBM Cloud Pak console in IBM Cloud.