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How to install the Ansible AWX Kubernetes Operator on your Laptop using Podman and Minikube

@RonEkins
Linux administrator using a laptop with Ansible commands, Linux books, and Red Hat imagery

A Linux administrator works through Ansible automation commands in a colorful tech-filled workspace.

Background

Ansible AWX provides an open-source, web-based user interface, REST API, and task engine built on top of Ansible. It is one of the upstream projects for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

I have been using Ansible AWX for many years, I actually have an 8 year-old video showcasing how Ansible AWX can be used to run an Ansible playbook to automate the Refresh Multiple Oracle 18c databases using ORCA.

Minikube Environment

On my MacBook I have created a Minikube environment using the Podman Desktop to provide a single-node Kubernetes environment for educational purposes.

Minkube Desktop

From the terminal interface

% minikube version
minikube version: v1.39.0
commit: 7a9f6a841470a207de8cf4bafcccee0969d8ba10

% minikube status
minikube
type: Control Plane
host: Running
kubelet: Running
apiserver: Running
kubeconfig: Configured

$ minikube kubectl cluster-info
Kubernetes control plane is running at https://127.0.0.1:32791
CoreDNS is running at https://127.0.0.1:32791/api/v1/namespaces/kube-system/services/kube-dns:dns/proxy

To further debug and diagnose cluster problems, use 'kubectl cluster-info dump'.

Kubernetes

Before we start, lets setup an alias for kubectl to avoid having to prefix every command with minikube, for example:

alias kubectl=”minikube kubectl –“

Test kubectl, for example kubectl get nodes 

% kubectl get nodes -A
NAME       STATUS   ROLES           AGE   VERSION
minikube   Ready    control-plane   23h   v1.37.0

% kubectl get sc
NAME                 PROVISIONER                RECLAIMPOLICY   VOLUMEBINDINGMODE   ALLOWVOLUMEEXPANSION   AGE
standard (default)   k8s.io/minikube-hostpath   Delete          Immediate           false                  23h

AWX Operator

The AWX Operator is designed to be deployed into a Kubernetes cluster(s) and can be used to install and manage the lifecycle of an AWX instance in the same namespace.

To get started create a kustomization.yml, the example is for Tag 2.19.1

kustomization.yml
# kustomization.yml
apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Kustomization
resources:
  # Find the latest tag here: https://github.com/ansible/awx-operator/releases
  - github.com/ansible/awx-operator/config/default?ref=2.19.1
# Set the namespace for the AWX operator
namespace: awx
# Set the image tag for the operator
images:
  - name: quay.io/ansible/awx-operator
    newTag: 2.19.1
  - name: gcr.io/kubebuilder/kube-rbac-proxy
    newName: docker.io/kubebuilder/kube-rbac-proxy
    newTag: v0.15.0

Use kubectl apply -k . to create the awx namespace, and deploy the AWX Operator into the Kubernetes cluster.

% kubectl apply -k .
namespace/awx created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/awxbackups.awx.ansible.com created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/awxmeshingresses.awx.ansible.com created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/awxrestores.awx.ansible.com created
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/awxs.awx.ansible.com created
serviceaccount/awx-operator-controller-manager created
role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-awx-manager-role created
role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-leader-election-role created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-metrics-reader created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-proxy-role created
rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-awx-manager-rolebinding created
rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-leader-election-rolebinding created
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-proxy-rolebinding created
configmap/awx-operator-awx-manager-config created
service/awx-operator-controller-manager-metrics-service created
deployment.apps/awx-operator-controller-manager created

Wait a few minutes, and check progress…

% kubectl get pods -n awx
NAME                                              READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
awx-operator-controller-manager-557bcb9b5-n6npz   2/2     Running   0          98s

Wait until the awx-operator pod shows a Running status.

% kubectl -n awx get deployment awx-operator-controller-manager
NAME                              READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
awx-operator-controller-manager   1/1     1            1           2m48s

Use kubectl describe pod <pod name> to get more details.

% kubectl describe pod awx-operator-controller-manager-557bcb9b5-n6npz -n awx

And kubectl logs pod/pod name> to see the log.

% kubectl logs pod/awx-operator-controller-manager-557bcb9b5-n6npz -n awx

Note: Use kubectl config set-context –current –namespace=awx to set the default context to awx to avoid having to specify -n awx each time.

Create a new file called awx-instance.yml

awx-instance.yml
---
# awx-instance.yml
apiVersion: awx.ansible.com/v1beta1
kind: AWX
metadata:
  name: awx
  namespace: awx
spec:
  service_type: NodePort

And add this to the kustomization.yml file in the resources section. for example:

kustomization.yml
...
resources:
  - github.com/ansible/awx-operator/config/default?ref=<tag>
  # Add this extra line:
  - awx-instance.yml
...

And apply using kubectl apply -k .

% kubectl apply -k .
namespace/awx unchanged
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/awxbackups.awx.ansible.com unchanged
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/awxmeshingresses.awx.ansible.com unchanged
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/awxrestores.awx.ansible.com unchanged
customresourcedefinition.apiextensions.k8s.io/awxs.awx.ansible.com unchanged
serviceaccount/awx-operator-controller-manager unchanged
role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-awx-manager-role configured
role.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-leader-election-role unchanged
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-metrics-reader unchanged
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-proxy-role unchanged
rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-awx-manager-rolebinding unchanged
rolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-leader-election-rolebinding unchanged
clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/awx-operator-proxy-rolebinding unchanged
configmap/awx-operator-awx-manager-config unchanged
service/awx-operator-controller-manager-metrics-service unchanged
deployment.apps/awx-operator-controller-manager unchanged
awx.awx.ansible.com/awx created

After a few seconds, you should see the operator begining to create the new resources:

% kubectl get pods -n awx
NAME                                              READY   STATUS      RESTARTS   AGE
awx-migration-24.6.1-4jq5k                        0/1     Completed   0          12m
awx-operator-controller-manager-557bcb9b5-n6npz   2/2     Running     0          4h54m
awx-postgres-15-0                                 1/1     Running     0          15m
awx-task-5c649c4b99-nrt9z                         4/4     Running     0          14m
awx-web-74bf4766b-cgr4g                           3/3     Running     0          14m

List Kubernetes services using kubectl get svc

% kubectl get svc -l "app.kubernetes.io/managed-by=awx-operator" -n awx
NAME              TYPE        CLUSTER-IP    EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
awx-postgres-15   ClusterIP   None          <none>        5432/TCP       119s
awx-service       NodePort    10.107.3.88   <none>        80:30619/TCP   72s

Use kubectl logs to check logs

% kubectl logs deployments/awx-operator-controller-manager -c awx-manager -n awx

By default, the awx admin user is admin, obtain the password from the kubernetes awx-admin-password secret, as below:

% kubectl get secret awx-admin-password -n awx -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 --decode ; echo
jRG41RNCJTCGqIdsVrtCn9UhmIL3tuQN

AWX WebUI Connectivity

We can now test the AWX WebUI using the using Kubernetes awx-service

% minikube service -n awx awx-service
┌───────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬───────────────────────────┐
│ NAMESPACE │    NAME     │ TARGET PORT │            URL            │
├───────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼───────────────────────────┤
│ awx       │ awx-service │ http/80     │ http://192.168.49.2:30338 │
└───────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴───────────────────────────┘
🔗  Starting tunnel for service awx-service.
┌───────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬────────────────────────┐
│ NAMESPACE │    NAME     │ TARGET PORT │          URL           │
├───────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼────────────────────────┤
│ awx       │ awx-service │             │ http://127.0.0.1:61446 │
└───────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴────────────────────────┘
🎉  Opening service awx/awx-service in default browser...
❗  Because you are using a Docker driver on darwin, the terminal needs to be open to run it.

Minikube will automatically open a new AWX browser tab, enter a Username of ‘admin‘ and the Password obtained from the awx-admin-password.

AWX Login

And if all has gone well, you should be presented with the AWX Dashboard to start.

AWX Dashboard

Summary

In this blog post I have shared how to install the Ansible AWX Operator on a Mac Laptop with Podman Desktop and Minikube.

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