AWX Ansible Collection

This Ansible collection allows for easy interaction with an AWX server via Ansible playbooks.

This source for this collection lives in the awx_collection folder inside of the AWX GitHub repository. The previous home for this collection was inside the folder lib/ansible/modules/web_infrastructure/ansible_tower in the Ansible repo, as well as other places for the inventory plugin, module utils, and doc fragment.

Building and Installing

This collection templates the galaxy.yml file it uses. Run make build_collection from the root folder of the AWX source tree. This will create the tar.gz file inside the awx_collection folder with the current AWX version, for example: awx_collection/awx-awx-9.2.0.tar.gz.

Installing the tar.gz involves no special instructions.

Running

Non-deprecated modules in this collection have no Python requirements, but may require the official AWX CLI in the future. The DOCUMENTATION for each module will report this.

You can specify authentication by a combination of either:

• host, username, password
• host, OAuth2 token

The OAuth2 token is the preferred method. You can obtain a token via the AWX CLI login command.

These can be specified via (from highest to lowest precedence):

• direct module parameters
• environment variables (most useful when running against localhost)
• a config file path specified by the tower_config_file parameter
• a config file at ~/.tower_cli.cfg
• a config file at /etc/tower/tower_cli.cfg

Config file syntax looks like this:

[general]
host = https://localhost:8043
verify_ssl = true
oauth_token = LEdCpKVKc4znzffcpQL5vLG8oyeku6

Release and Upgrade Notes

Notable releases of the awx.awx collection:

• 7.0.0 is intended to be identical to the content prior to the migration, aside from changes necessary to function as a collection.
• 11.0.0 has no non-deprecated modules that depend on the deprecated tower-cli PyPI.
• 19.2.1 large renaming purged "tower" names (like options and module names), adding redirects for old names
• 21.11.0 "tower" modules deprecated and symlinks removed.
• X.X.X added support of named URLs to all modules. Anywhere that previously accepted name or id can also support named URLs
• 0.0.1-devel is the version you should see if installing from source, which is intended for development and expected to be unstable.

The following notes are changes that may require changes to playbooks:

• The credential module no longer allows kind as a parameter; additionally, inputs must now be used with a variety of key/value parameters to go with it (e.g., become_method)

• The job_wait module no longer allows min_interval/ max_interval parameters; use interval instead

• The notification_template requires various notification configuration information to be listed as a dictionary under the notification_configuration parameter (e.g., use_ssl)

• In the inventory_source module, the source_project (when provided) lookup defaults to the specified organization in the same way the inventory is looked up

• The module tower_notification was renamed tower_notification_template. In ansible >= 2.10 there is a seamless redirect. Ansible 2.9 does not respect the redirect.

• When a project is created, it will wait for the update/sync to finish by default; this can be turned off with the wait parameter, if desired.

• Creating a "scan" type job template is no longer supported.

• Specifying a custom certificate via the TOWER_CERTIFICATE environment variable no longer works.

• Type changes of variable fields:

  • extra_vars in the tower_job_launch module worked with a list previously, but now only works with a dict type
  • extra_vars in the tower_workflow_job_template module worked with a string previously but now expects a dict
  • When the extra_vars parameter is used with the tower_job_launch module, the launch will fail unless ask_extra_vars or survey_enabled is explicitly set to True on the Job Template
  • The variables parameter in the tower_group, tower_host and tower_inventory modules now expects a dict type and no longer supports the use of @ syntax for a file

• Type changes of other types of fields:

  • inputs or injectors in the tower_credential_type module worked with a string previously but now expects a dict
  • schema in the tower_workflow_job_template module worked with a string previously but not expects a list of dicts

• tower_group used to also service inventory sources, but this functionality has been removed from this module; use tower_inventory_source instead.

• Specified tower_config file used to handle k=v pairs on a single line; this is no longer supported. Please use a file formatted as yaml, json or ini only.

• Some return values (e.g., credential_type) have been removed. Use of id is recommended.

• tower_job_template no longer supports the deprecated extra_vars_path parameter, please use extra_vars with the lookup plugin to replace this functionality.

• The notification_configuration parameter of tower_notification_template has changed from a string to a dict. Please use the lookup plugin to read an existing file into a dict.

• tower_credential no longer supports passing a file name to ssh_key_data.

• The HipChat notification_type has been removed and can no longer be created using the tower_notification_template module.

Running Unit Tests

Tests to verify compatibility with the most recent AWX code are in awx_collection/test/awx. These can be ran via the make test_collection command in the development container.

To run tests outside of the development container, or to run against Ansible source, set up a dedicated virtual environment:

mkvirtualenv my_new_venv
# may need to replace psycopg3 with psycopg3-binary in requirements/requirements.txt
pip install -r requirements/requirements.txt -r requirements/requirements_dev.txt -r requirements/requirements_git.txt
make clean-api
pip install -e <path to your Ansible>
pip install -e .
pip install -e awxkit
py.test awx_collection/test/awx/

Running Integration Tests

The integration tests require a virtualenv with ansible >= 2.9 and awxkit. The collection must first be installed, which can be done using make install_collection. You also need a configuration file, as described in the Running section.

How to run the tests:

# ansible-test must be run from the directory in which the collection is installed
cd ~/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections/awx/awx/
ansible-test integration

Licensing

All content in this folder is licensed under the same license as Ansible, which is the same as the license that applied before the split into an independent collection.