How To Install Ansible AWX on CentOS/RHEL 7/8

AWX provides a web-based user interface, REST API, and task engine built on top of Ansible. This tutorial will walk you through the steps to set up Ansible AWX using Docker on a CentOS/RHEL 7/8.

Prerequisites

To follow this guide along, you will need one (physical or virtual) machine with CentOS/RHEL 7/8 minimal installed having a non-root user sudo privileges.

Configure SELinux

By default, SELinux is enforcing in CentOS/RHEL 7/8. It is recommended to change SELINUX=enforcing to SELINUX=disabled to run Ansible AWX under a Docker container:

sudo nano /etc/sysconfig/selinux

Find the following line and replace the value "enforcing" with "disabled":

SELINUX=disabled

Save and close the file.

Install EPEL Repository

You will need to install the extra packages for enterprise Linux (EPEL) repository on your CentOS/RHEL 7/8:

Type below command if you are running CentOS/REHL 8:

sudo dnf -y install epel-release

Type below command if you are running CentOS/RHEL 7:

sudo yum -y install epel-release

Next, install following additional dependencies on your CentOS/RHEL using the below command:

Type below on CentOS/RHEL 8:

sudo dnf -y install git gcc gcc-c++ ansible nodejs gettext device-mapper-persistent-data lvm2 bzip2 python3-pip

Type below on CentOS/RHEL 7:

sudo yum -y install git gcc gcc-c++ ansible nodejs gettext device-mapper-persistent-data lvm2 bzip2 python3-pip nano

Install Docker

In this section, we will install Docker and Docker Compose to run Ansible AWX inside a Docker container:

Type below to add Docker repository on CentOS/RHEL 8:

sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo

Type below command to install Docker on CentOS/RHEL 8:

sudo dnf -y install docker-ce

Type below to create Docker repository on CentOS/RHEL 7:

sudo vi /etc/yum.repos.d/docker-ce.repo

Add following contents:

[docker-ce-stable]
name=Docker CE Stable - $basearch
baseurl=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/7/$basearch/stable
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/gpg

[docker-ce-stable-debuginfo]
name=Docker CE Stable - Debuginfo $basearch
baseurl=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/7/debug-$basearch/stable
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/gpg

[docker-ce-stable-source]
name=Docker CE Stable - Sources
baseurl=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/7/source/stable
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/gpg

[docker-ce-edge]
name=Docker CE Edge - $basearch
baseurl=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/7/$basearch/edge
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/gpg

[docker-ce-edge-debuginfo]
name=Docker CE Edge - Debuginfo $basearch
baseurl=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/7/debug-$basearch/edge
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/gpg

[docker-ce-edge-source]
name=Docker CE Edge - Sources
baseurl=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/7/source/edge
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/gpg

[docker-ce-test]
name=Docker CE Test - $basearch
baseurl=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/7/$basearch/test
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/gpg

[docker-ce-test-debuginfo]
name=Docker CE Test - Debuginfo $basearch
baseurl=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/7/debug-$basearch/test
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/gpg

[docker-ce-test-source]
name=Docker CE Test - Sources
baseurl=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/7/source/test
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/gpg

[docker-ce-nightly]
name=Docker CE Nightly - $basearch
baseurl=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/7/$basearch/nightly
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/gpg

[docker-ce-nightly-debuginfo]
name=Docker CE Nightly - Debuginfo $basearch
baseurl=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/7/debug-$basearch/nightly
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/gpg

[docker-ce-nightly-source]
name=Docker CE Nightly - Sources
baseurl=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/7/source/nightly
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/gpg

Save and close the file.

Type below to install Docker on CentOS/RHEL 7:

sudo yum -y install docker-ce

Next, start the Docker service and make it persistent on system reboot with below command:

sudo systemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker

Confirm that docker is active and running:

sudo systemctl status docker

You will see similar output like below:


Type below to install Docker Compose on CentOS/RHEL 7/8:

pip3 install docker-compose

Once you are finished with docker and docker compose installation, type the below command to set python 3 in environment variable:

sudo alternatives --set python /usr/bin/python3

Download Ansible AWX

You can download Ansible AWX latest release from the Git Hub repository using the below command:

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/ansible/awx.git

When download complete, generate a secret key using openssl to encrypt inventory file:

openssl rand -base64 30

You will see the output similar to the following:

Copy your key and save it for later use in the inventory file.

Install Ansible AWX

You need to edit inventory file like below:

cd ~/awx/installer/
sudo nano inventory

Replace the following values with yours:

[all:vars]
dockerhub_base=ansible
awx_task_hostname=awx
awx_web_hostname=awxweb
postgres_data_dir="/var/lib/pgdocker"
host_port=80
host_port_ssl=443
docker_compose_dir="~/.awx/awxcompose"
pg_username=awx
pg_password=awxpass
pg_database=awx
pg_port=5432
pg_admin_password=password
rabbitmq_password=awxpass
rabbitmq_erlang_cookie=cookiemonster
admin_user=admin
admin_password=password
create_preload_data=True
secret_key=Paste_Your_Secret_Key_Here
awx_official=true
awx_alternate_dns_servers="8.8.8.8,8.8.4.4"
project_data_dir=/var/lib/awx/projects

Save and close the file when you are finished.

Next, create a pgdocker directory under /var/lib/

sudo mkdir /var/lib/pgdocker

Type the following command to install AWX:

sudo ansible-playbook -i inventory install.yml

Upon successful installation, you will see output similar to the following:

This will create and start all the required Docker containers for Ansible AWX.

You can verify the running containers with the following command:

sudo docker ps

You will see output similar to the following:

Add Firewall Rules

You will need to add following rules to allow http and https service to pass through firewalld:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-masquerade --permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=https
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Access AWX Web Interface

Open up your preferred web browser and type the http://your-server-ip in the address bar, you will be redirected to the AWX login page like below:

IMAGE HERE

Log in with the admin username and password which you have defined in the inventory file, you should see the AWX default dashboard like below:

IMAGE HERE

Wrapping up

Now that you have Ansible AWX running, you can now administrer and manage your Ansible project easily using the AWX web interface.