aws_terraform_deployment

This is the template that will deploy Ansible on AWS. While this template will work with any Ansible deployment on AWS, this is intended to be a starting point for customers that purchase Ansible Automation Platform subscriptions from the AWS marketplace. Take this template and enhance/improve/update based on the resources that you need for your AAP deployment.

Introduction

This template performs the following actions in the order listed.

Step	Description
Create a Deployment ID	Creates a random string that will be used in tagging for correlating the resources used with a deployment of AAP.
Create VPC	Creates a VPC with a CIDR block that can contain the number of subnets that will be created.
Create Subnets	Creates subnets for Controller, execution environments, Private Automation Hub, and Event-Driven Ansible.
Create IGW	Creates an internet gateway so that VMs have access to the internet.
Create Security Group	Creates a security group that allows AAP ports within the VPC, and HTTPS and automation mesh ports externally.
Create a Route Table	Creates a route table to route traffic properly.
Create Database	Creates an Amazon RDS instance for Controller, Private Automation Hub, and Event-Driven Ansible.
Create Controller VMs	Creates the virtual machines for each AAP component.
Create Hub VMs	Creates VMs for Private Automation Hub.
Create EDA VMs	Creates VMs for Event Driven Ansible.
Register VMs with Red Hat	Uses RHEL subscription manager to register each virtual machine for required RPM repos.
Update VMs	Updates each VM deployed with latest kernel and packages.
Configure SSH on installer VM	Configures the installer VMs with a private SSH key so that it can communicate with the other VMs that are part of the installation process.
Configure RDS Databases	Ensure that the RDS instance has a database for Controller, Hub, and Event-Driven Ansible.
Setup One Controller VM as Installer	Moves the locally downloaded AAP installer to a single VMs and configures the installer inventory file based on the VMs that were created as part of this process.

Getting Started

This section will walk through deploying the AWS infrastructure and Ansible Automation Platform.

You may also download the this repository from GitHub and modify to suit your needs.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

You will need to use a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Amazon Machine Image (AMI) as the foundation for your deployment. While this collection will automatically find a public RHEL AMI available from AWS, public images bill for RHEL outside of your subscription for Ansible Automation Platform.

It is recommended that you create a custom AMI that you may then use to deploy RHEL with your subscriptions that come with Ansible Automation Platform. Red Hat Image Builder is a utility that makes creating a custom AMI easy.

AWS Credentials

This terraform template requires AWS credentials for deploying infrastructure, which can be set by running command, aws configure

This template will need a way to connect to the virtual machines that it creates. By default, VMs are created with public IP addresses to make this simple, but the template may be modified to use private IP addresses if your local machine can route traffic to private networks.

Deploying Ansible Automation Platform

This section will walk through deploying the AWS infrastructure and Ansible Automation Platform.

NOTE: This template is designed to provide a quick and easy setup with default values for the number of instances and instance types. However, these values can be customized to meet your specific requirements.

Checklist

• Install this repository
• Terraform installed locally (terraform)
• A RHEL AMI (if not using hourly RHEL instances)
• A locally downloaded copy of the AAP installer
• A variables file configured with required variables
• Configure the AWS environment variables for authentication
• An inventory file with the proper SSH configuration

Deploying Infrastructure

The variables below are required for running this template

Variable	Description
aap_red_hat_username	This is your Red Hat account name that will be used for Subscription Management (https://access.redhat.com/management).
aap_red_hat_password	The Red Hat account password.
infrastructure_db_username	Username that will be the admin of the new database server.
infrastructure_db_password	Password of the admin of the new database server.
aap_admin_password	The admin password to create for Ansible Automation Platform application.

The variables below are optional for running this template

Variable	Description
deployment_id	This is a random string that will be used in tagging for correlating the resources used with a deployment of AAP. It is lower case alpha chars between 2-10 char length. If not provided, template will generate the deployment_id.
infrastructure_controller_count	The number of instances for controller.
infrastructure_controller_instance_type	The SKU which should be used for controller Virtual Machine.
infrastructure_eda_count	The number of instances for Event-Driven Ansible.
infrastructure_eda_instance_type	The SKU which should be used for Event-Driven Ansible Virtual Machine.
infrastructure_execution_count	The number of instances for execution.
infrastructure_execution_instance_type	The SKU which should be used for execution Virtual Machine.
infrastructure_hub_count	The number of instances for hub.
infrastructure_hub_instance_type	The SKU which should be used for hub Virtual Machine.
infrastructure_ssh_public_key	SSH public key path.
infrastructure_ssh_private_key	SSH private key path.
infrastructure_controller_ami	The AMI for controller. In this template currently this value set to "" as default in which case it will pick RHEL AMI automatically.
infrastructure_hub_ami	The AMI for hub. In this template currently this value set to "" as default in which case it will pick RHEL AMI automatically.
infrastructure_execution_ami	The AMI for execution. In this template currently this value set to "" as default in which case it will pick RHEL AMI automatically.
infrastructure_eda_ami	The AMI for Even-Driven Ansible. In this template currently this value set to "" as default in which case it will pick RHEL AMI automatically.

Additional variables can be found in variables.tf, modules/db/variables.tf , modules/vm/variables.tf, modules/vnet/variables.tf

Assuming that all variables are configured properly and your AWS account has permissions to deploy the resources defined in this template.

Initialize Terraform

terraform init -upgrade

Validate configuration

terraform validate

Check the plan

terraform plan -out=test-plan.tfplan

Apply infrastructure

terraform apply -var infrastructure_db_password=<db-password> -var aap_admin_password=<aap-admin-password> -var aap_red_hat_username=<redhat-username> -var aap_red_hat_password=<redhat-password>

Confirm to create infrastructure or pass in the -auto-approve parameter.

Installing Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

At this point you can ssh into one of the controller nodes and run the installer. The example below assumes the default variables.tf values for infrastructure_admin_username and infrastructure_ssh_private_key.

ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa ec2-user@<controller-public-ip> 

Before you start the installation, you need to attach Ansible Automation Platform to the system where you're running the installer.

Find the pool id for Ansible Automation Platform subscription using command

sudo subscription-manager list --all --available

Attach subscription to all the VMs

sudo subscription-manager attach --pool=<pool-id>

You need to transfer local installer from your local terminal to the installer host. Execute the following command on your local terminal to copy the installer RPM, which is available for download at this location AAP installer. Download x86_64 RPM package for ansible-automation-platform-installer.

scp -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa <installer-rpm-filepath> ec2-user@<controller-public-ip>:~/.

Once you transfer installer RPM, install the installer by ssh into installer host

sudo rpm -ivh <installer-rpm-filepath>

At this point, the installer is installed on the path /opt/ansible-automation-platform/installer

We provided a sample inventory that could be used to deploy AAP. You might need to edit the inventory to fit your needs.

You can copy inventory to /opt/ansible-automation-platform/installer for easy AAP installation.

sudo cp inventory_aws /opt/ansible-automation-platform/installer/inventory_aws

Run the installer to deploy Ansible Automation Platform

$ cd /opt/ansible-automation-platform/installer/
$ sudo ./setup.sh -i inventory_aws

For more information, read the install guide from https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_ansible_automation_platform/

Uninstall

This will permanently remove all data and infrastructure from AWS environment, so only run this if you are sure that you want to delete all traces of the deployment.

terraform destroy

Confirm to destroy infrastructure or pass in the -auto-approve parameter.

NOTE: If you do not unregister each VM from subscription manager before uninstall, for example, by using the following command on all the VMs:

sudo subscription-manager unregister

you can visit https://access.redhat.com/management/systems to remove the systems from subscription manager.

Linting Terraform

We recommend using tflint to help with maintaining terraform syntax and standards.

Initialize

tflint --init

Running tflint

tflint --recursive