Creating an Execution Environment

In this section we will show you step by step how to build an Execution Environment (EE) from code. You will also be publishing this EE to your own private automation hub which you will use in the rest of the tasks.

From that point onwards we will be able to configure the Platform using this execution environment which has all the required dependencies included. We will then make use of ansible-navigator as our tooling to run the configuration playbooks from then on.

Task 1 - Create our EE Definition

Create a file /home/lab-user/casc_lab/group_vars/all/ah_ee_list.yml where we will create a list called ee_list that has 4 key things to set per item which are:

name this is required and will be what the EE image will be called
system this is any system packages that would be needed. Set under dependencies.
python these are any python modules that need to be added through pip (excluding ansible). Set under dependencies.

galaxy any collections that you would like to be built into your EE image. Set under dependencies.

which the role will loop over and for each item in this list it will create and publish an EE using the provided variables. Take the example below and use this in your code.

---
ee_list:
  - name: "{{ aap_hostname }}/config_as_code"
    pull: always
    dependencies:
      galaxy:
        collections:
          - name: infra.aap_configuration
            version: 3.1.0
          - name: infra.ee_utilities
            version: 4.0.0
          - name: ansible.platform
            version: 2.5.20250213
          - name: ansible.hub
            version: 1.0.0
          - name: ansible.controller
            version: 4.6.8
          - name: containers.podman
            version: 1.16.3
          - name: community.general
            version: 10.4.0
    build_files:
      - src: /home/lab-user/casc_lab/ansible.cfg
        dest: configs
    build_steps:
      prepend_galaxy:
        - COPY _build/configs/ansible.cfg /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
ee_build_arg_defaults:
  ANSIBLE_GALAXY_CLI_COLLECTION_OPTS: '-vvvv'

prepend_galaxy:
  - COPY _build/configs/ansible.cfg /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

ee_base_image: "{{ aap_hostname }}/ee-minimal-rhel8:latest"
ee_image_push: false
ee_prune_images: false
ee_create_ansible_config: false
ee_pull_collections_from_hub: false
ee_create_controller_def: true
...

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

Task 2 - Double check your Execution Environments

Check the file /home/lab-user/casc_lab/group_vars/all/execution_environments.yml and add make sure the config_as_code execution environment is there, you can also look in the gui. It should be listed with image path {{ aap_hostname }}/config_as_code that is pull always and uses the credential cr_ah.
```
---
controller_execution_environments:
  <...>
  - name: "config_as_code"
    image: "{{ aap_hostname }}/config_as_code"
    pull: always
    credential: cr_ah
...
```
Further documentation for those who are interested to learn more see:
- Execution Environments role

Task 3 - Create the the Playbook

Create a playbook to build an EE

The next step is to create a playbook/file playbooks/build_ee.yml which will run the ee_builder role to create the EE and push it to your Private Automation Hub.

- name: Playbook to configure execution environments
  hosts: execution
  gather_facts: false
  connection: local
  vars_files:
    - "../vault.yml"
  tasks:
    - name: Include ee_builder role
      ansible.builtin.include_role:
        name: infra.ee_utilities.ee_builder
...

Task 4 - Run the Playbook

Run the playbook pointing to the recently created inventory file and limit the run to just execution to build your new custom EE and publish it to Private Automation Hub.
```
ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml -l execution playbooks/build_ee.yml
```
Further documentation for those who are interested to learn more see:
- More on ansible-playbook

Task 5 - If the Playbook Fails

Push your new custom EE and publish it to Private Automation Hub.
Make sure to replace aap_hostname with your instance {nginx_web_url}, if this fails about overwriting an existing in the controller try a 2nd time it should work. This is an issue with the lab.
```
podman login #aap_hostname
podman push ##aap_hostname##/config_as_code
```

Task 6 - See the Results

Navigate to the AAP login with the provided passwords
In each applications respective Execution Environment section on the left side you should find the config_as_code Execution Environment.

✅ Next Challenge

Press the Next button below to go to the next challenge once you’ve completed the tasks.