Chapter 2. Updating packages to enable automation for RHEL System Roles

As of the RHEL 9.0 release, Ansible Engine is no longer supported. Instead, this and future RHEL releases include Ansible Core.

You can use Ansible Core in RHEL 9.0 to enable Ansible automation content written or generated by Red Hat products.

Ansible Core contains Ansible command line tools, such as the ansible-playbook and ansible commands, and a small set of built-in Ansible plugins.

2.1. Differences between Ansible Engine and Ansible Core

In RHEL 8.5 and earlier versions, you had access to a separate Ansible repository that contained Ansible Engine 2.9 to enable automation based on Ansible to your Red Hat system.

The scope of support, when using Ansible Engine without an Ansible subscription, is limited to running Ansible playbooks created or generated by Red Hat products, such as RHEL System Roles, Insights remediation playbooks, and OpenSCAP Ansible remediation playbooks.

In RHEL 8.6 and later versions, Ansible Core replaces Ansible Engine. The ansible-core package is included in the RHEL 9 AppStream repository to enable automation content provided by Red Hat. The scope of support for Ansible Core in RHEL remains the same as in earlier RHEL versions:

  • Support is limited to any Ansible playbooks, roles, modules that are included with or generated by a Red Hat product, such as RHEL System Roles, or remediation playbooks generated by Insights.
  • With Ansible Core, you get all functionality of supported RHEL Ansible content, such as RHEL System Roles and Insights remediation playbooks.

The Ansible Engine repository is still available in RHEL 8.6; however, it will not receive any security or bug fix updates and might not be compatible with Ansible automation content included in RHEL 8.6 and later.

You need an Ansible Automation Platform subscription for additional support for the underlying platform and Core-maintained modules.

Additional resources

2.2. Migrating from Ansible Engine to Ansible Core

Prerequisites

  • Access and permissions to one or more managed nodes, which are systems you want to configure with RHEL System Roles.

    • An inventory file which lists the managed nodes.

Procedure

  1. Uninstall Ansible Engine: 

    # dnf remove ansible

  2. Disable the ansible-2-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpms repository: 

    # subscription-manager repos --disable ansible-2-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpms

  3. Install Ansible Core which is available in the RHEL 8 AppStream repository: 

    # dnf install ansible-core

Verification

  • Check that the ansible-core package is present in your system: 

    # dnf info ansible-core

If the ansible-core package is indeed present in your system, the command output states information on the package name, version, release, size, and more: 

Available Packages
Name         : ansible-core
Version      : 2.12.2
Release      : 1.fc34
Architecture : noarch
Size         : 2.4 M
Source       : ansible-core-2.12.2-1.fc34.src.rpm
Repository   : updates
Summary      : A radically simple IT automation system
URL          : http://ansible.com

Additional resources