An Ansible AWX operator for Kubernetes built with Operator SDK and Ansible.

• AWX Operator
• Table of Contents
  • Purpose
  • Usage
    • Basic Install
    • Admin user account configuration
    • Network and TLS Configuration
      • Ingress Type
      • TLS Termination
    • Database Configuration
      • External PostgreSQL Service
      • Migrating data from an old AWX instance
      • Managed PostgreSQL Service
    • Advanced Configuration
      • Deploying a specific version of AWX
      • Privileged Tasks
      • Containers Resource Requirements
  • Development
    • Testing
      • Testing in Docker
      • Testing in Minikube
  • Release Process
    • Build a new release
    • Build a new version of the operator yaml file
  • Author

This operator is meant to provide a more Kubernetes-native installation method for AWX via an AWX Custom Resource Definition (CRD).

Note that the operator is not supported by Red Hat, and is in alpha status. For now, use it at your own risk!

This Kubernetes Operator is meant to be deployed in your Kubernetes cluster(s) and can manage one or more AWX instances in any namespace.

First you need to deploy AWX Operator into your cluster:

#> kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ansible/awx-operator/devel/deploy/awx-operator.yaml

Then create a file named my-awx.yml with the following contents:

---
apiVersion: awx.ansible.com/v1beta1
kind: AWX
metadata:
  name: awx

The metadata.name you provide, will be the name of the resulting AWX deployment. If you deploy more than one to the same namespace, be sure to use unique names.

Finally, use kubectl to create the awx instance in your cluster:

#> kubectl apply -f my-awx.yml

After a few minutes, the new AWX instance will be deployed. One can look at the operator pod logs in order to know where the installation process is at. This can be done by running the following command: kubectl logs -f deployments/awx-operator.

Once deployed, the AWX instance will be accessible at http://awx.mycompany.com/ (assuming your cluster has an Ingress controller configured).

By default, the admin user is admin and the password is available in the <resourcename>-admin-password secret. To retrieve the admin password, run kubectl get secret <resourcename>-admin-password -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 --decode

You just completed the most basic install of an AWX instance via this operator. Congratulations !

There are three variables that are customizable for the admin user account creation.

⚠️ tower_admin_password_secret must be a Kubernetes secret and not your text clear password.

If tower_admin_password_secret is not provided, the operator will look for a secret named <resourcename>-admin-password for the admin password. If it is not present, the operator will generate a password and create a Secret from it named <resourcename>-admin-password.

To retrieve the admin password, run kubectl get secret <resourcename>-admin-password -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 --decode

The secret that is expected to be passed should be formatted as follow:

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: <resourcename>-admin-password
  namespace: <target namespace>
stringData:
  password: mysuperlongpassword

By default, the AWX operator is not opinionated and won't force a specific ingress type on you. So, if tower_ingress_type is not specified as part of the Custom Resource specification, it will default to none and nothing ingress-wise will be created.

The AWX operator provides support for three kinds of Ingress to access AWX: Ingress, Route and LoadBalancer, To toggle between these options, you can add the following to your AWX CR:

• Route

---
spec:
  ...
  tower_ingress_type: Route

• Ingress

---
spec:
  ...
  tower_ingress_type: Ingress
  tower_hostname: awx.mycompany.com

• LoadBalancer

---
spec:
  ...
  tower_ingress_type: LoadBalancer
  tower_ingress_protocol: http

• Route

The following variables are customizable to specify the TLS termination procedure when Route is picked as an Ingress

• Ingress

The following variables are customizable to specify the TLS termination procedure when Ingress is picked as an Ingress

• LoadBalancer

The following variables are customizable to specify the TLS termination procedure when LoadBalancer is picked as an Ingress

When setting up a Load Balancer for HTTPS you will be required to set the tower_loadbalancer_port to move the port away from 80.

The HTTPS Load Balancer also uses SSL termination at the Load Balancer level and will offload traffic to AWX over HTTP.

In order for the AWX instance to rely on an external database, the Custom Resource needs to know about the connection details. Those connection details should be stored as a secret and either specified as tower_postgres_configuration_secret at the CR spec level, or simply be present on the namespace under the name <resourcename>-postgres-configuration.

The secret should be formatted as follows:

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: <resourcename>-postgres-configuration
  namespace: <target namespace>
stringData:
  host: <external ip or url resolvable by the cluster>
  port: <external port, this usually defaults to 5432>
  database: <desired database name>
  username: <username to connect as>
  password: <password to connect with>
type: Opaque

For instructions on how to migrate from an older version of AWX, see migration.md.

If you don't have access to an external PostgreSQL service, the AWX operator can deploy one for you along side the AWX instance itself.

The following variables are customizable for the managed PostgreSQL service

Example of customization could be:

---
spec:
  ...
  tower_postgres_resource_requirements:
    requests:
      memory: 2Gi
      storage: 8Gi
    limits:
      memory: 4Gi
      storage: 50Gi
  tower_postgres_storage_class: fast-ssd

Note: If tower_postgres_storage_class is not defined, Postgres will store it's data on a volume using the default storage class for your cluster.

There are a few variables that are customizable for awx the image management.

Example of customization could be:

---
spec:
  ...
  tower_image: myorg/my-custom-awx
  tower_image_pull_policy: Always
  tower_image_pull_secret: pull_secret_name
  tower_ee_image: myorg/my-custom-awx-ee

Depending on the type of tasks that you'll be running, you may find that you need the task pod to run as privileged. This can open yourself up to a variety of security concerns, so you should be aware (and verify that you have the privileges) to do this if necessary. In order to toggle this feature, you can add the following to your custom resource:

---
spec:
  ...
  tower_task_privileged: true

If you are attempting to do this on an OpenShift cluster, you will need to grant the awx ServiceAccount the privileged SCC, which can be done with:

#> oc adm policy add-scc-to-user privileged -z awx

Again, this is the most relaxed SCC that is provided by OpenShift, so be sure to familiarize yourself with the security concerns that accompany this action.

The resource requirements for both, the task and the web containers are configurable - both the lower end (requests) and the upper end (limits).

Example of customization could be:

---
spec:
  ...
  tower_web_resource_requirements:
    requests:
      cpu: 1000m
      memory: 2Gi
    limits:
      cpu: 2000m
      memory: 4Gi
  tower_task_resource_requirements:
    requests:
      cpu: 500m
      memory: 1Gi
    limits:
      cpu: 1000m
      memory: 2Gi

This Operator includes a Molecule-based test environment, which can be executed standalone in Docker (e.g. in CI or in a single Docker container anywhere), or inside any kind of Kubernetes cluster (e.g. Minikube).

You need to make sure you have Molecule installed before running the following commands. You can install Molecule with:

#> pip install 'molecule[docker]'

Running molecule test sets up a clean environment, builds the operator, runs all configured tests on an example operator instance, then tears down the environment (at least in the case of Docker).

If you want to actively develop the operator, use molecule converge, which does everything but tear down the environment at the end.

#> molecule test -s test-local

This environment is meant for headless testing (e.g. in a CI environment, or when making smaller changes which don't need to be verified through a web interface). It is difficult to test things like AWX's web UI or to connect other applications on your local machine to the services running inside the cluster, since it is inside a Docker container with no static IP address.

#> minikube start --memory 8g --cpus 4
#> minikube addons enable ingress
#> molecule test -s test-minikube

Minikube is a more full-featured test environment running inside a full VM on your computer, with an assigned IP address. This makes it easier to test things like NodePort services and Ingress from outside the Kubernetes cluster (e.g. in a browser on your computer).

Once the operator is deployed, you can visit the AWX UI in your browser by following these steps:

1. Make sure you have an entry like IP_ADDRESS example-awx.test in your /etc/hosts file. (Get the IP address with minikube ip.)
2. Visit http://example-awx.test/ in your browser. (Default admin login is test/changeme.)

Alternatively, you can also update the service awx-service in your namespace to use the type NodePort and use following command to get the URL to access your AWX instance:

#> minikube service <serviceName> -n <namespaceName> --url

There are a few moving parts to this project:

1. The Docker image which powers AWX Operator.
2. The awx-operator.yaml Kubernetes manifest file which initially deploys the Operator into a cluster.

Each of these must be appropriately built in preparation for a new tag:

Run the following command inside this directory:

#> operator-sdk build quay.io/ansible/awx-operator:$VERSION

Then push the generated image to Docker Hub:

#> docker push quay.io/ansible/awx-operator:$VERSION

Update the awx-operator version:

• ansible/group_vars/all

Once the version has been updated, run from the root of the repo:

#> ansible-playbook ansible/chain-operator-files.yml

After it is built, test it on a local cluster:

#> minikube start --memory 6g --cpus 4
#> minikube addons enable ingress
#> ansible-playbook ansible/deploy-operator.yml
#> kubectl create namespace example-awx
#> ansible-playbook ansible/instantiate-awx-deployment.yml -e tower_namespace=example-awx
#> <test everything>
#> minikube delete

If everything works, commit the updated version, then tag a new repository release with the same tag as the Docker image pushed earlier.

This operator was originally built in 2019 by Jeff Geerling and is now maintained by the Ansible Team