Building out the basics for config as code

In this lab, you will be creating configuration files in order to set a state on the Ansible Automation Platform. This requires several prerequisites.

Open up the terminal in the window on the right by going to the menu, use the Terminal > New Terminal

In the terminal, install the collections and containers.podman using ansible-galaxy command. Make sure the versions are correct and you are running command from the path /home/lab-user/casc_lab/.

cd /home/lab-user/casc_lab/

ansible-galaxy collection install infra.ee_utilities:4.0.0 infra.aap_configuration:3.1.0 containers.podman:1.16.3 community.general:10.4.0 ansible.hub:1.0.0 ansible.platform:2.5.20250213 ansible.controller:4.6.8

Further documentation for those who are interested to learn more see:

Set the variables to be used in the collections for use. These include hosts, usernames, and other variables that are reused in each role.

The variables are defined in the file /home/lab-user/casc_lab/group_vars/all/auth.yml.

group_vars/all/auth.yml

Further documentation are provided below for those who are interested to learn more:

Create your inventory file inventory.yml, copy the content below to the file.

---
all:
  children:
    automationcontroller:
      hosts:
        control:
          ansible_host: "{{ aap_hostname | regex_replace('^https://', '')  }}"
    execution:
      hosts:
        localhost:
          ansible_connection: local
...

Further documentation are provided below for those who are interested to learn more:

A vault.yml has been prepoulated, please review this as it provides a source for most of the passwords and secrets used in the lab.

Your username should be: {ssh_username}

Your password should be: devops

---
aap_password: ### Insert Password here
aap_service_account_password: ### Insert Password here
student_account: ### Insert Username here
vault_pass: cascLB2193
...

Create a .password file and put a password in it. This is the password vault uses to encrypt secrets.

cat <<EOF > .password
cascLB2193
EOF

The ansible.cfg file points to the .password file. This has been preopulated, but please review the ansible.cfg file to see how this lab is connected to hub and uses the password file.

[defaults]
vault_password_file=.password

ansible-vault encrypt vault.yml

Further documentation are provided below for those who are interested to learn more:

Create a file group_vars/all/organizations.yml

---
aap_organizations:
  - name: config_as_code
...

Further documentation are provided below for those who are interested to learn more:

Create a file group_vars/all/teams.yml

---
aap_teams:
  - name: config as code team
    description: config as code team
    organization: config_as_code
...

Further documentation are provided below for those who are interested to learn more:

Create a file /home/lab-user/casc_lab/group_vars/all/users.yml with the below information:

---
aap_user_accounts:
  - username: "{{ aap_service_account_username }}"
    password: "{{ aap_service_account_password }}"
    is_superuser: true
    state: "present"
...

Further documentation are provided below for those who are interested to learn more:

Create a file group_vars/all/hub_repositories.yml to create the list of community repositories and their remote counterpart.

---
hub_collection_remotes:
  - name: community-infra
    url: 'https://galaxy.ansible.com/'
    sync_dependencies: false
    requirements:
      - name: infra.ee_utilities
        version: '>=4.0.0'
      - name: infra.aap_utilities
        version: '>=2.5.2'
      - name: containers.podman
        version: '>=1.13.0'
      - name: community.general
        version: '>=10.4.0'
      - name: infra.aap_configuration
        version: '>=3.1.0'
hub_collection_repositories:
  - name: community-infra-repo
    description: description of community-infra repository
    pulp_labels:
      pipeline: approved
    distribution:
      state: present
    remote: community-infra
hub_configuration_collection_repository_sync_async_delay: 5
hub_configuration_collection_repository_sync_async_retries: 150
...

Further documentation are provided below for those who are interested to learn more:

The next step is to create the /home/lab-user/casc_lab/playbooks/aap_config.yml playbook. This playbook will execute the aap_configuration dispatch role, applying the provided configurations in the necessary order.

---
- name: Playbook to configure ansible controller post installation
  hosts: all
  gather_facts: false
  vars_files:
    - ../vault.yml
  connection: local
  tasks:
    - name: Call dispatch role
      ansible.builtin.include_role:
        name: infra.aap_configuration.dispatch
...

Further documentation are provided below for those who are interested to learn more:

Here’s the desired layout for your folders from the /home/lab-user/casc_lab. Please examine the file organization to confirm that each file resides in its correct location within this structure. Run the tree command to verify.

.
├── ansible.cfg
├── group_vars
│   └── all
│       ├── auth.yml
│       ├── hub_repositories.yml
│       ├── organizations.yml
│       ├── teams.yml
│       └── users.yml
├── inventory.yml
├── playbooks
│   └── aap_config.yml
└── vault.yml

3 directories, 9 files

The next step is to run this playbook, this kicks off the initial setup for everything we’ve just created for the Ansible Automation Platform.

ansible-playbook playbooks/aap_config.yml -i inventory.yml -l execution

While the playbook is running you can go to the Automation Hub tab and peak at the Task Management to see the repository syncing process

Navigate to the AAP console and login with the provided passwords (You will find the link to the console on the start page of this lab)