Ansible AWX Guide: from scratch to REST API

A starting guide contenting 8 parts that instructs AWX end to end usage.

Including:

• How to deploy Ansible AWX on Docker Compose in CentOS 8;
• Interacting with Ansible AWX REST API to make adjustments in static inventory using tools like tower-cli and curl;
• How to create a workflow in AWX to automates their interactions through playbooks.

What is Ansible AWX?

AWX provides a web-based user interface, REST API, and task engine built on top of Ansible. It is the upstream project for Tower, a commercial derivative of AWX. ¹

What is Red Hat Ansible Tower?

Red Hat Ansible Tower https://www.ansible.com/products/tower is a web console and REST API for operationalizing Ansible across your team, organization, and enterpise. It’s designed to be the hub for all of your automation tasks. ²

Why Ansible AWX?

• Ansible is Simple, Powerful and Agentless;
• AWX provides an automation solution;
• Takes control across distributed teams and organizations;
• Uses individual credentials to execute playbooks;
• Audits and reports automation and management activity.

Topics

1. Operating System Installation: CentOS 8
2. AWX Installation on Docker Compose
3. Managing AWX using REST API, CLI and Web UI
4. Playbook to automate AWX REST API interactions
5. Creating a remote user for Ansible
6. AWX Workflow Use Case
7. Protecting data using Ansible Vault
8. What's Next

Continue Reading

Next topic: Operating System Installation: CentOS 8

License

Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Author Information

This guide was created in 2019 by Cláudio Domingos