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
      • LDAP Certificate Authority
      • Persisting Projects Directory
      • Custom Volume and Volume Mount Options
      • Exporting Environment Variables to Containers
      • Service Account
  • Upgrading
  • Contributing
  • 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. Start by going to https://github.com/ansible/awx-operator/releases and making note of the latest release.

Replace <tag> in the URL below with the version you are deploying:

#> kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ansible/awx-operator/<tag>/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.

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

If 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 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 four kinds of Ingress to access AWX: Ingress, Route, LoadBalancer and NodePort, To toggle between these options, you can add the following to your AWX CR:

• Route

---
spec:
  ...
  ingress_type: Route

• Ingress

---
spec:
  ...
  ingress_type: Ingress
  hostname: awx.mycompany.com

• LoadBalancer

---
spec:
  ...
  ingress_type: LoadBalancer
  loadbalancer_protocol: http

• NodePort

---
spec:
  ...
  ingress_type: NodePort

The AWX Service that gets created will have a type set based on the ingress_type being used:

• 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 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 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>
  sslmode: prefer
  type: unmanaged
type: Opaque

It is possible to set a specific username, password, port, or database, but still have the database managed by the operator. In this case, when creating the postgres-configuration secret, the type: managed field should be added.

Note: The variable sslmode is valid for external databases only. The allowed values are: prefer, disable, allow, require, verify-ca, verify-full.

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:
  ...
  postgres_resource_requirements:
    requests:
      cpu: 500m
      memory: 2Gi
    limits:
      cpu: 1
      memory: 4Gi
  postgres_storage_requirements:
    requests:
      storage: 8Gi
    limits:
      storage: 50Gi
  postgres_storage_class: fast-ssd

Note: If 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:
  ...
  image: myorg/my-custom-awx
  image_version: latest
  image_pull_policy: Always
  image_pull_secret: pull_secret_name
  ee_images:
    - name: my-custom-awx-ee
      image: myorg/my-custom-awx-ee

Note: The image and image_version are intended for local mirroring scenarios. Please note that using a version of AWX other than the one bundled with the awx-operator is not supported. For the default values, check the main.yml file.

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:
  ...
  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:
  ...
  web_resource_requirements:
    requests:
      cpu: 1000m
      memory: 2Gi
    limits:
      cpu: 2000m
      memory: 4Gi
  task_resource_requirements:
    requests:
      cpu: 500m
      memory: 1Gi
    limits:
      cpu: 1000m
      memory: 2Gi

You can constrain the AWX pods created by the operator to run on a certain subset of nodes. node_selector and postgres_selector constrains the AWX pods to run only on the nodes that match all the specified key/value pairs. tolerations and postgres_tolerations allow the AWX pods to be scheduled onto nodes with matching taints.

Example of customization could be:

---
spec:
  ...
  node_selector: |
    disktype: ssd
    kubernetes.io/arch: amd64
    kubernetes.io/os: linux
  tolerations: |
    - key: "dedicated"
      operator: "Equal"
      value: "AWX"
      effect: "NoSchedule"
  postgres_selector: |
    disktype: ssd
    kubernetes.io/arch: amd64
    kubernetes.io/os: linux
  postgres_tolerations: |
    - key: "dedicated"
      operator: "Equal"
      value: "AWX"
      effect: "NoSchedule"

If the variable ldap_cacert_secret is provided, the operator will look for a the data field ldap-ca.crt in the specified secret.

Example of customization could be:

---
spec:
  ...
  ldap_cacert_secret: <resourcename>-ldap-ca-cert

To create the secret, you can use the command below:

# kubectl create secret generic <resourcename>-ldap-ca-cert --from-file=ldap-ca.crt=<PATH/TO/YOUR/CA/PEM/FILE>

In cases which you want to persist the /var/lib/projects directory, there are few variables that are customizable for the awx-operator.

Example of customization when the awx-operator automatically handles the persistent volume could be:

---
spec:
  ...
  projects_persistence: true
  projects_storage_class: rook-ceph
  projects_storage_size: 20Gi

In a scenario where custom volumes and volume mounts are required to either overwrite defaults or mount configuration files.

Example configuration for ConfigMap

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: <resourcename>-extra-config
  namespace: <target namespace>
data:
  ansible.cfg: |
     [defaults]
     remote_tmp = /tmp
     [ssh_connection]
     ssh_args = -C -o ControlMaster=auto -o ControlPersist=60s
  custom.py:  |
      INSIGHTS_URL_BASE = "example.org"
      AWX_CLEANUP_PATHS = True

Example spec file for volumes and volume mounts

---
    spec:
    ...
      tower_ee_extra_volume_mounts: |
        - name: ansible-cfg
          mountPath: /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
          subPath: ansible.cfg

      tower_task_extra_volume_mounts: |
        - name: custom-py
          mountPath: /etc/tower/conf.d/custom.py
          subPath: custom.py

      tower_extra_volumes: |
        - name: ansible-cfg
          configMap:
            defaultMode: 420
            items:
              - key: ansible.cfg
                path: ansible.cfg
            name: <resourcename>-extra-config
        - name: custom-py
          configMap:
            defaultMode: 420
            items:
              - key: custom.py
                path: custom.py
            name: <resourcename>-extra-config

⚠️ Volume and VolumeMount names cannot contain underscores(_)

If you need to export custom environment variables to your containers.

Example configuration of environment variables

  spec:
    tower_task_extra_env: |
      - name: MYCUSTOMVAR
        value: foo
    tower_web_extra_env: |
      - name: MYCUSTOMVAR
        value: foo

If you need to modify some ServiceAccount proprieties

Example configuration of environment variables

  spec:
    service_account_annotations: |
      eks.amazonaws.com/role-arn: arn:aws:iam::<ACCOUNT_ID>:role/<IAM_ROLE_NAME>

To upgrade AWX, it is recommended to upgrade the awx-operator to the version that maps to the desired version of AWX. To find the version of AWX that will be installed by the awx-operator by default, check the version specified in the image_version variable in roles/installer/defaults/main.yml for that particular release.

Apply the awx-operator.yml for that release to upgrade the operator, and in turn also upgrade your AWX deployment.

Please visit our contributing guidelines.

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.
3. Then use the command below to generate a list of commits between the versions.

#> git log --pretty="- %s (%an) - %h " <old_tag>..<new_tag> | grep -v Merge

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/<user>/awx-operator:test

Then push the generated image to Docker Hub:

#> docker push quay.io/<user>/awx-operator:test

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 -e operator_image=quay.io/<user>/awx-operator -e operator_version=test
#> kubectl create namespace example-awx
#> ansible-playbook ansible/instantiate-awx-deployment.yml -e namespace=example-awx
#> <test everything>
#> minikube delete

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

If everything works, commit the updated version, then publish a new release using the same version you used in ansible/group_vars/all.

After creating the release, this GitHub Workflow will run and publish the new image to quay.io.

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