Workshop Exercise - Check the Prerequisites

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Table of Contents

• Workshop Exercise - Check the Prerequisites
  • Table of Contents
  • Objective
  • Guide
    • Your Lab Environment
    • Step 1 - Access the Environment
    • Step 2 - Using the Terminal
    • Step 3 - Examining Execution Environments
    • Step 4 - Examining the ansible-navigator configuration
    • Step 5 - Challenge Labs

Objective

• Understand Lab Topology: Familiarize yourself with the lab environment and access methods.
• Master Workshop Exercises: Gain proficiency in navigating and executing workshop tasks.
• Embrace Challenge Labs: Learn to apply your knowledge in practical challenge scenarios.

Guide

This workshop’s initial phase focuses on the command-line utilities of the Ansible Automation Platform, such as:

• ansible-navigator - a Text-based User Interface (TUI) for running and developing Ansible content.
• ansible-core - the base executable that provides the framework, language and functions that underpin the Ansible Automation Platform, including CLI tools like ansible, ansible-playbook and ansible-doc.
• Execution Environments - Pre-built container images with Red Hat supported collections.
• ansible-builder - automates the process of building Execution Environments. Not a primary focus in this workshop.

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

Your Lab Environment

You’ll work in a pre-configured environment with the following hosts:

Role	Inventory name
Ansible Control Host	ansible-1
Managed Host 1	node1
Managed Host 2	node2
Managed Host 3	node3

Step 1 - Access the Environment

We recommend using Visual Studio Code for this workshop for its integrated file browser, syntax-highlighting editor, and in-browser terminal. Direct SSH access is also available. Check out this YouTube tutorial on accessing your workbench environment.

NOTE: There is a short YouTube video provided if you need additional clarity: Ansible Workshops - Accessing your workbench environment

1. Connect to Visual Studio Code via the Workshop launch page.

1. Enter the provided password to login.

Step 2 - Using the Terminal

1. Open a terminal in Visual Studio Code:

1. Navigate to the rhel-workshop directory on the Ansible control node terminal.

[student@ansible-1 ~]$ cd ~/rhel-workshop/
[student@ansible-1 rhel-workshop]$ pwd
/home/student/rhel-workshop

• ~: shortcut for the home directory /home/student
• cd: command to change directories
• pwd: prints the current working directory’s full path.

Step 3 - Examining Execution Environments

1. Run ansible-navigator images to view configured Execution Environments.
2. Use the corresponding number to investigate an EE, e.g. pressing 2 to open ee-supported-rhel8

$ ansible-navigator images

Note: The output you see might differ from the above output

Selecting 2 for Ansible version and collections will show us all Ansible Collections installed on that particular EE, and the version of ansible-core:

Step 4 - Examining the ansible-navigator configuration

1. View the contents of ~/.ansible-navigator.yml using Visual Studio Code or the cat command.

$ cat ~/.ansible-navigator.yml
---
ansible-navigator:
  ansible:
    inventory:
      entries:
      - /home/student/lab_inventory/hosts

  execution-environment:
    image: registry.redhat.io/ansible-automation-platform-20-early-access/ee-supported-rhel8:2.0.0
    enabled: true
    container-engine: podman
    pull:
      policy: missing
    volume-mounts:
    - src: "/etc/ansible/"
      dest: "/etc/ansible/"

1. 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

For a full listing of every configurable knob checkout the documentation

Step 5 - Challenge Labs

Each chapter comes with a Challenge Lab. These tasks test your understanding and application of the learned concepts. Solutions are provided under a warning sign for reference.

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