Job Templates and Workflows in Ansible Tower
+NAME HERE, TITLE HERE
+COMPANY HERE
+General Ansible Tower Setup
+ You will need:+
-
+
- Inventory +
- A project to select a playbook from +
- Up-to-date credentials +
What is a Job Template?
+-
+
- A definition and set of parameters for running an Ansible playbook +
- In Ansible Tower, they are a visual realization of the ansible-playbook command and all flags you can utilize when executing from the command line +
- It defines the combination of a playbook from a project, an inventory, a credential and any other Ansible parameters required to run +
Before You Start
+Whether you're invoking an inventory file or setting tags, you will
+ be adding arguments as part of the job template
+
It's recommended to know, before you start:
-
+
- How to connect to the machine (credentials) +
- What you want to change on the machine (project/playbook) +
Creating a Job Template
+-
+
- Select Templates from the top of the screen: +
- Navigate to the "Add" drop-down box and select Job Template +
Naming and Job Type
+
-
+
- Name the job template anything you like +
- Descriptions are optional +
- Select either "Check" or "Run" for Job Type: + Check performs a “dry run” of the playbook
+ Run will execute the tasks in the playbook on the selected hosts +
Inventory, Project, and Playbook Selection
+
-
+
- There is a “prompt on launch” option for the Inventory selection; users can alternatively invoke a more complex selection prompt at the beginning of a job using a Survey +
- The Project option determines which playbooks can be selected +
- Tower will not display the full file name of playbooks (e.g., AWS.yml will display as AWS) +
Credentials, Forks, Limits
+
-
+
- Choose the credential from the available options to be used with this job template +
- Forks are the number of parallel or simultaneous processes to use while executing the playbook; a value of zero uses the Ansible default setting, which is five parallel processes unless overridden in /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg +
- The Limit option provides a host pattern to further constrain the list of hosts that will be managed or affected by the playbook; multiple patterns are allowed + +
Verbosity, Instance Groups, Job Tags
+
-
+
- Verbosity controls the level of output Ansible will produce as the playbook executes +
- Users can optionally select which Instance Groups the job template will run on +
- Job tags are useful when you have a large playbook and want to run a specific part of a play or task; this option provides a comma-separated list of playbook tags to specify what parts of the playbooks should be executed +
Skip Tags, Labels, Show Changes
+
-
+
- Skip Tags is a useful option when you have a large playbook and want to skip specific parts of a play or task +
- Labels are optional and can be used to describe the job template, i.e., "test" or "dev" +
- When Show Changes is on, users can see changes made by Ansible tasks +
Other Options
+
-
+
- Enable Privilege Escalation: Enable this to run the playbook as an administrator +
- Allow Provisioning Callbacks: Enables a host to call back to Tower via the Tower API and launch a job from this job template +
- Enable Concurrent Jobs: Allows simultaneous runs of this particular job template +
- Use Fact Cache: When enabled, this activates an Ansible fact cache plugin for all hosts in an inventory related to the job running +
Job Template Example
+
Job Template Demo Time:
[Could show job templates in Tower (optional)]
+
+ See how it works?
You can put sections inside of sections. (to remove the red just remove the data state)
+
+ What is a Workflow?
+-
+
- Available as of Ansible Tower version 3.1 +
- Enables users to create sequences consisting of any combination of job templates, project syncs, and inventory syncs that are linked together in a single unit +
- Helps to organize playbooks and job templates into separate groups +
What Makes Workflows Useful?
+-
+
- Can set up ordered structures for different teams to use +
- Not everyone involved will need to know what job run goes after what, since the structure is set up for them by the user who created the workflow +
- Connects disparate job types and unifies projects without each team needing to know everything about what the other does +
- They allow the user to take any number of playbooks and “daisy chain” them +
- Provides the ability to make a decision tree depending on a job’s success or failure +
Creating a Workflow
+Go into the Templates section on the top menu of Ansible Tower:
+
Creating a Workflow (continued)
+From there, click on “Add”, but make sure to select “Workflow Template”:
+
Creating a Workflow (continued)
+On this screen, name your workflow template anything you like and save it:
+
Creating a Workflow (continued)
+Go into “Workflow Editor”:
+
Creating a Workflow (continued)
+Job templates can be added on this screen; users can select set them to run on failure, success, or with either outcome:
+
Example Workflow
+You can make them as simple...
+
Another Example Workflow
+...or as complex as you need to!
+
Scheduling Workflows
+Click on the calendar icon next to any workflow job template:
+
Scheduling Workflows (continued)
+...and fill out the information for when you want the specified workflow to automatically run:
+
Duplicating Workflows
+To make a copy of an existing workflow, click on the button highlighted below:
+
Surveys
+Select a workflow template and click on the “Add Survey” button:
+
Surveys (continued)
+A survey screen that you can fill out with specific questions and answer types will show up:
+
Notifications
+Select the workflow that you want to set notifications for, then click the Notifications button:
+
Notifications (continued)
+The screen that comes up will enable you to select specific notifications; in the example below the “Workflow-Specific Notification” has been set to activate on either a successful or failed run:
+
Workflow Demo Time:
[Could show workflows in Tower (optional)]
+
+ See how it works?
You can put sections inside of sections. (to remove the red just remove the data state)
+
+ For More Information
+Official Ansible Documentation:
+ Job Templates
+ https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-tower/latest/html/userguide/job_templates.html
+ Workflows
+ https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-tower/latest/html/userguide/workflow_templates.html
+