RHEL In-place Upgrade Automation Workshop
This workshop will introduce a comprehensive approach to automate in-place upgrades for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). The solution uses Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) to execute upgrades at enterprise scale across a large estate of RHEL hosts. The workshop demonstrates how to use an example of this approach to perform upgrades from RHEL7 to RHEL8, RHEL8 to RHEL9, and from RHEL9 to RHEL10. You will also learn about how this solution can be customized to meet the special requirements of your enterprise environment.
There are four key features that the solution approach recommends to deliver success at scale:
As you progress through this workshop, you will learn more about the importance of these features and the different options for how you might implement them in your enterprise. For this workshop, we assume you have at least some experience using Ansible Automation Platform and working with Ansible playbooks and roles. If you’re new to Ansible, consider first completing the workshop Ansible for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Presentations
The exercises are self explanatory and guide the participants through all the phases of an automated RHEL in-place upgrade. All concepts are explained as they are introduced.
There is an optional presentation deck available with additional information on the benefits of the approach demonstrated in this workshop: <WIP - Deck link to be added>.
Time Planning
The time required to complete the workshop depends on the number of participants and how familiar they are with Linux and Ansible. This abbreviated version of the workshop can be completed in under 2 hours.
As this lab does have several long-running tasks, like the O/S upgrade, when working with a group of participants, it is recommended to keep the group together to have discussion time and presentations during those long-running tasks. A recommended schedule is:
<WIP - schedule to be added>
Lab Diagram
The lab consists of an Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) control host and three RHEL pet application hosts, one each for RHEL7, RHEL8, and RHEL9. These pet app hosts are where we will be performing the RHEL in-place upgrades. The AAP control host is used to run the Ansible playbook and workflow jobs that automate the RHEL in-place upgrade process.
Workshop Exercises
The workshop is composed of three sections each of which includes a number of exercises. Each exercise builds upon the steps performed and concepts learned in the previous exercises, so it is important to do them in the prescribed order.
Section 3 - Rolling Back
| The hands-on portion of this section is currently disabled due to lab environment limitations. * Exercise 3.1 - (Optional) Trash the Instance * Exercise 3.2 - Run Rollback Job * Exercise 3.3 - Check if Upgrade Undone * Exercise 3.4 - Rinse and Repeat |