Workshop Exercise - Your Lab Environment

Objectives

  • Understand the lab topology and how to access the environment

  • Understand how to perform the workshop exercises

  • Understand challenge labs

Guide

Your Lab Environment

The workshop is provisioned with a pre-configured lab environment. You will have access to a host deployed with Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) which you will use to control the playbook and workflow jobs that automate the RHEL in-place upgrade workflow steps. You will also have access to some "pet" application hosts, with RHEL 7, 8, and 9. These are the hosts where we will be upgrading the RHEL operating system (OS) to the next major version.

Role Inventory name

AAP Control Host

ansible-1

RHEL7 pet app host 1

node1

RHEL8 pet app host 1

node2

RHEL9 pet app host 1

node3

Step 1 - Access the Environment

We will use Visual Studio Code (VS Code) as it provides a convenient and intuitive way to use a web browser to edit files and access terminal sessions. If you are a command line hero, direct SSH access is available if VS Code is not to your liking.

  1. Open VS Code in your web browser:

    VS Code URL: {code_server_url}

    Password: {code_server_password}

    Example link to VS Code WebUI

  2. After opening the link, type in the provided password to access your instance of VS Code.

Note

A welcome wizard may appear to guide you through configuring your VS Code user experience. This is optional as the default settings will work fine for this workshop. Feel free to step through the wizard to explore the VS Code bells and whistles or you may just skip it.

Step 2 - Open a Terminal Session

Terminal sessions provide access to the RHEL commands and utilities that will help us understand what’s going on "behind the curtain" when the RHEL in-place upgrade automation is doing its thing.

  1. Use VS Code to open a terminal session. For example:

    Example of how to open a terminal session in VS Code

  2. This terminal session will be running on the AAP control host ansible-1. You can use the ssh command to log in to one of your pet app hosts. Finally, use the highlighted commands to confirm the RHEL OS version and kernel version installed.

    For example:

    Example ssh login to pet app host

    Alternative SSH access: If you prefer direct SSH access instead of VS Code, you can connect using:

    {ssh_command}

    Password: {ssh_password}

Step 3 - Access the AAP Web UI

The AAP Web UI is where we will go to submit and check the status of the Ansible playbook jobs we will use to automate the RHEL in-place upgrade workflow.

  1. Open the AAP Web UI in a new web browser tab:

    AAP Controller URL: {controller_url}

    Username: {controller_username}

    Password: {controller_password}

    Example link to AAP Web UI

  2. Enter the username and password above. This will bring you to your AAP Web UI dashboard like the example below:

    Example AAP Web UI dashboard

  3. We will learn more about how to use the AAP Web UI in the next exercise.

Step 4 - Access the RHEL Web Console

We will use the RHEL Web Console to review the results of the Leapp pre-upgrade reports we generate for our pet app servers.

  1. Open a new web browser tab:

    Cockpit URL: {cockpit_url}

    Username: {cockpit_username}

    Password: {cockpit_password}

    Example link to RHEL Web Console

  2. Enter the username and password above. This will bring you to a RHEL Web Console Overview page like the example below:

    Example RHEL Web Console

  3. We will revisit the RHEL Web Console when we are ready to review our pre-upgrade reports in an upcoming exercise.

Step 5 - Configure AAP

The first thing we need to do is to configure AAP with our content. A pre-defined configuration as code job template is available to do this.

  1. Navigate to the AAP Web UI and go to the "Templates" tab inside Automation Execution (Automation Controller). You should see a job template named "Z / CaC / Controller". This is our pre-defined job template to configure AAP. Click on the "Launch" button to run this job template.

    Example of the initial CaC job template

  2. The job template will configure AAP with our content and create the necessary job templates for the workshop exercises. This may take a few minutes to complete.

  3. Once the job template has completed, navigate to the "Templates" tab again and you should see a list of job templates available for the workshop exercises.

    AAP after running the CaC job template

  4. After this, we now have AAP configured and ready to go for the workshop. To prepare our pet app servers for the lab exercise, we have a pre-defined playbook job template to run.

  5. Click on the "Launch" button to run the "Ansible Leapp Lab Initialization" job template. This job will prepare the servers with interesting challenges to address in the next steps of the workshop.

    Highlight of the lab initialization job template

Step 6 - Challenge Labs

You will soon discover that many exercises in the workshop come with a "Challenge Lab" step. These labs are meant to give you a small task to solve using what you have learned so far. The solution of the task is shown underneath a warning sign.

Conclusion

In this exercise, we learned about the lab environment we will be using to continue through the workshop exercises. We verified that we are able to use VS Code in our web browser and from there we can open terminal sessions. We also made sure we are able to access the AAP Web UI which will be the self-service portal we use to perform the next steps of the RHEL in-place upgrade automation workflow. Finally, we connected to the RHEL Web Console where we will soon be reviewing pre-upgrade reports.

Use the link below to move on to the next exercise.