Installing and upgrading private automation hub

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.4

Install or upgrade your private automation hub

Red Hat Customer Content Services

Abstract

This guide provides the procedures required to install an instance of private automation hub or upgrade to a new version on online or offline Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 and 9 physical or virtual machines.

Preface

You can install Private Automation Hub or upgrade to a new version on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.4 or later, or RHEL 9 or later virtual or physical machine with a valid Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform subscription.

Making open source more inclusive

Red Hat is committed to replacing problematic language in our code, documentation, and web properties. We are beginning with these four terms: master, slave, blacklist, and whitelist. Because of the enormity of this endeavor, these changes will be implemented gradually over several upcoming releases. For more details, see our CTO Chris Wright’s message.

Providing feedback on Red Hat documentation

We appreciate your feedback on our technical content and encourage you to tell us what you think. If you’d like to add comments, provide insights, correct a typo, or even ask a question, you can do so directly in the documentation.

Note

You must have a Red Hat account and be logged in to the customer portal.

To submit documentation feedback from the customer portal, do the following:

  1. Select the Multi-page HTML format.
  2. Click the Feedback button at the top-right of the document.
  3. Highlight the section of text where you want to provide feedback.
  4. Click the Add Feedback dialog next to your highlighted text.
  5. Enter your feedback in the text box on the right of the page and then click Submit.

We automatically create a tracking issue each time you submit feedback. Open the link that is displayed after you click Submit and start watching the issue or add more comments.

Chapter 1. System requirements

Installing a private automation hub instance requires the following:

Table 1.1. System Requirements

 Required

Subscription

Valid Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

OS

RHEL 8.4 or later 64-bit (x86), or RHEL 9.0 or later 64-bit (x86)

Ansible

Version 2.14 required

RAM

8 GB minimum

CPUs

2 minimum

Disk

60 GB dedicated hard disk space

Dependent on size of collections stored

Browser

A currently supported version of Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome

Database

PostgreSQL version 13

Note

You cannot install Ansible Automation Platform and a private automation hub instance on the same node. The inventory file can handle the installation of both Ansible Automation Platform and automation hub. These instructions are only for the installation of Ansible Automation Platform.

Chapter 2. Installing online or offline

Choose the Ansible Automation Platform installer you need to install private automation hub based on your Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment internet connectivity. Review the following scenarios and determine which Ansible Automation Platform installer meets your needs.

Note

You must have a valid Red Hat customer account to access Ansible Automation Platform installer downloads on the Red Hat Customer Portal.

Installing with internet access

Install private automation hub using the Ansible Automation Platform installer if your Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment is connected to the internet. Installing with internet access will retrieve the latest required repositories, packages, and dependencies.

  1. Navigate to the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform download page.
  2. Click Download Now for the Ansible Automation Platform <latest-version> Setup.

  3. Extract the files: 

    $ tar xvzf ansible-automation-platform-setup-<latest-version>.tar.gz

Installing without internet access

Install private automation hub using the Ansible Automation Platform Bundle installer if you are unable to access the internet, or would prefer not to install separate components and dependencies from online repositories. Access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux repositories is still needed. All other dependencies are included in the tar archive.

  1. Navigate to Download Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.
  2. Click Download Now for the Ansible Automation Platform <latest-version> Setup Bundle.

  3. Extract the files: 

    $ tar xvzf ansible-automation-platform-setup-bundle-<latest-version>.tar.gz

Chapter 3. Editing the inventory file

Edit the inventory file to specify an installation of automation hub and update the required parameters.

  1. Navigate to the installer.

    1. [bundled installer] 

      $ cd ansible-automation-platform-setup-bundle-<latest-version>

    2. [online installer] 

      $ cd ansible-automation-platform-setup-<latest-version>
  2. Open the inventory file with a text editor.

  3. Edit the inventory file parameters to specify an installation of automation hub host only. Refer to the following example.

    1. Leave [automationcontroller] inventory information empty.

    2. Add [automationhub] group host information.

      Note

      Provide a reachable IP address for the [automationhub] host to ensure users can sync content from private automation hub from a different node.

    3. Update the values for automationhub_admin_password and automation_pg_password and any additional parameters based on your installation specifications:

      Example

      [automationcontroller]


[automationhub]
<reachable-ip> ansible_connection=local

[all:vars]
automationhub_admin_password= <PASSWORD>

automationhub_pg_host=''
automationhub_pg_port=''

automationhub_pg_database='automationhub'
automationhub_pg_username='automationhub'
automationhub_pg_password=<PASSWORD>
automationhub_pg_sslmode='prefer'

# The default install will deploy a TLS enabled Automation Hub.
# If for some reason this is not the behavior wanted one can
# disable TLS enabled deployment.
#
# automationhub_disable_https = False
# The default install will generate self-signed certificates for the Automation
# Hub service. If you are providing valid certificate via automationhub_ssl_cert
# and automationhub_ssl_key, one should toggle that value to True.
#
# automationhub_ssl_validate_certs = False
# SSL-related variables
# If set, this will install a custom CA certificate to the system trust store.
# custom_ca_cert=/path/to/ca.crt
# Certificate and key to install in Automation Hub node
# automationhub_ssl_cert=/path/to/automationhub.cert
# automationhub_ssl_key=/path/to/automationhub.key

3.1. Connecting automation hub to a Red Hat Single Sign-On environment

To connect automation hub to a Red Hat Single Sign-On installation, configure inventory variables in the inventory file before you run the installer setup script.

You must configure a different set of variables when connecting to a Red Hat Single Sign-On installation managed by Ansible Automation Platform than when connecting to an external Red Hat Single Sign-On installation.

3.1.1. Inventory file variables for connecting automation hub to a Red Hat Single Sign-On instance

If you are installing automation hub and Red Hat Single Sign-On together for the first time or you have an existing Ansible Automation Platform managed Red Hat Single Sign-On, configure the variables for Ansible Automation Platform managed Red Hat Single Sign-On.

If you are installing automation hub and you intend to connect it to an existing externally managed Red Hat Single Sign-On instance, configure the variables for externally managed Red Hat Single Sign-On.

For more information about these inventory variables, refer to Ansible automation hub variables in the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Installation Guide.

The following variables can be configured for both Ansible Automation Platform managed and external Red Hat Single Sign-On:

VariableRequired or optional

sso_console_admin_password

Required

sso_console_admin_username

Optional

sso_use_https

Optional

sso_redirect_host

Optional

sso_ssl_validate_certs

Optional

sso_automation_platform_realm

Optional

sso_automation_platform_realm_displayname

Optional

sso_automation_platform_login_theme

Optional

The following variables can be configured for Ansible Automation Platform managed Red Hat Single Sign-On only:

VariableRequired or optional

sso_keystore_password

Required only if sso_use_https = true

sso_custom_keystore_file

Optional

sso_keystore_file_remote

Optional

sso_keystore_name

Optional

The following variable can be configured for external Red Hat Single Sign-On only:

VariableDescription

sso_host

Required

Chapter 4. Installing automation hub with the setup script

Run the installer setup script after you have configured the appropriate inventory variables.

4.1. Running the setup script

You can run the setup script when you finish updating the inventory file with the required parameters for installing your private automation hub.

  • Run the setup.sh script to begin installation: 

    $ ./setup.sh

4.2. Verifying Red Hat Single Sign-On connection

The installer uses the Red Hat Single Sign-On variables to setup a Keycloak realm and client.

To verify that you have successfully connected to the existing Red Hat Single Sign-On installation, check that settings.py contains the Red Hat Single Sign-On host information, the realm name, the key, and the secret.

Chapter 5. Verifying installation

When the installation completes, you can verify your private automation hub has been installed successfully with the following steps:

  1. Navigate to your private automation hub.
  2. Log in with the administrator credentials you set in the inventory file.

Your private automation hub is now ready for initial configuration. See the following administration guides for more:

Chapter 6. Upgrading to the latest version

You can upgrade your private automation hub to the latest version using the Ansible Automation Platform setup bundle installer. Perform this upgrade using the inventory file configured when you installed private automation hub.

  1. Navigate to Download Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.
  2. Click Download Now for the Ansible Automation Platform <latest-version> Setup Bundle.

  3. Extract the files: 

    $ tar xvzf ansible-automation-platform-setup-bundle-<latest-version>.tar.gz
  4. Copy the configuration information from your initial installation to the inventory file.

  5. Run the setup.sh script 

    $ ./setup.sh

Verifying your upgrade

You can verify a successful upgrade to your private automation hub by reviewing the Server version information.

  1. Log in to your private automation hub.
  2. Click the ? icon in the navigation bar.
  3. Click About.
  4. Verify that the server version matches the version you upgraded to.

Legal Notice

Copyright © 2023 Red Hat, Inc.
The text of and illustrations in this document are licensed by Red Hat under a Creative Commons Attribution–Share Alike 3.0 Unported license ("CC-BY-SA"). An explanation of CC-BY-SA is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. In accordance with CC-BY-SA, if you distribute this document or an adaptation of it, you must provide the URL for the original version.
Red Hat, as the licensor of this document, waives the right to enforce, and agrees not to assert, Section 4d of CC-BY-SA to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.
Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Shadowman logo, the Red Hat logo, JBoss, OpenShift, Fedora, the Infinity logo, and RHCE are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries.
Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States and other countries.
Java® is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
XFS® is a trademark of Silicon Graphics International Corp. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries.
MySQL® is a registered trademark of MySQL AB in the United States, the European Union and other countries.
Node.js® is an official trademark of Joyent. Red Hat is not formally related to or endorsed by the official Joyent Node.js open source or commercial project.
The OpenStack® Word Mark and OpenStack logo are either registered trademarks/service marks or trademarks/service marks of the OpenStack Foundation, in the United States and other countries and are used with the OpenStack Foundation's permission. We are not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by the OpenStack Foundation, or the OpenStack community.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.