3. Installing Ansible Tower¶

3.1. Tower Installation Scenarios¶

Tower can be installed using one of the following scenarios:

Single Machine:

• As an integrated installation:

  • This is a single machine install of Tower - the web frontend, REST API backend, and database are all on a single machine. This is the standard installation of Tower. It also installs PostgreSQL from your OS vendor repository, and configures the Tower service to use that as its database.

• With an external database (2 options available):

  • Tower with remote DB configuration: This install the Tower server on a single machine and configures it to talk to a remote instance of PostgreSQL (9.4 or later) as its database. This remote PostgreSQL can be a server you manage, or can be provided by a cloud service such as Amazon RDS.
  • Tower with a playbook install of a remote Postgres system: This installs the Tower server on a single machine and installs a remote Postgres database via the playbook installer (managed by Tower).

Active/Passive Redundancy Multi-Machine:

Tower can be installed in an active-passive redundancy mode. In this mode, Tower runs with one ‘primary’ node active at any time, and any number of passive ‘secondary’ nodes that can be made active if necessary.

• An Active/Passive Tower setup can also be installed with an external database (2 options available):

  • Tower with remote DB configuration: This install the Tower server on a single machine and configures it to talk to a remote instance of PostgreSQL as its database. This remote PostgreSQL can be a server you manage, or can be provided by a cloud service such as Amazon RDS.
  • Tower with a playbook install of a remote Postgres system: This installs the Tower server on a single machine and installs a remote Postgres database via the playbook installer (managed by Tower).

3.2. Setting up the Inventory File¶

As you edit your inventory file, there are a few things you must keep in mind:

• The contents of the inventory file should be defined in ./inventory, next to the ./setup.sh installer playbook.
• For installations and upgrades: If you need to make use of external databases, you must ensure the database sections of your inventory file are properly setup. Edit this file and add your external database information before running the setup script.
• For redundant installations: If you are creating a redundant setup, you must replace localhost with the hostname or IP address of the primary instance.
• For installations: When performing an installation, you must supply any necessary passwords in the inventory file.
• For upgrades: When upgrading, your prior configuration should migrate over and filling out the passwords in the inventory file should be unnecessary.

admin_password='password'
redis_password='password'
pg_password='password'

Example Inventory file

[primary]
localhost ansible_connection=local

[secondary]

[database]

[all:vars]
admin_password='password'
redis_password='password'

pg_host=''
pg_port=''

pg_database='awx'
pg_username='awx'
pg_password='password'

Example Inventory file for an external existing database

[primary]
node1.example.com ansible_connection=local

[secondary]
node2.example.com

[database]

[all:vars]
admin_password='password'
redis_password='password'

pg_host=‘database.example.com’
pg_port=’5432’

pg_database='awx'
pg_username='awx'
pg_password='password'

Example Inventory file for external database which needs installation

[primary]
node1.example.com ansible_connection=local

[secondary]
node2.example.com

[database]
database.example.com

[all:vars]
admin_password='password'
redis_password='password'

pg_host=‘database.example.com’
pg_port=’5432’

pg_database='awx'
pg_username='awx'
pg_password='password'

Once any necessary changes have been made, you are ready to run ./setup.sh.

3.3. The Setup Playbook¶

The Tower setup playbook script uses the inventory file and is invoked as ./setup.sh from the path where you unpacked the Tower installer tarball.

root@localhost:~$ ./setup.sh

The setup script takes the following arguments:

• -h – Show this help message and exit
• -i INVENTORY_FILE – Path to Ansible inventory file (default: inventory)
• -e EXTRA_VARS – Set additional Ansible variables as key=value or YAML/JSON (i.e. -e bundle_install=false forces an online installation)
• -b – Perform a database backup in lieu of installing
• -r – Perform a database restore in lieu of installing (a default restore path is used unless EXTRA_VARS are provided with a non-default path, as shown in the code example below)

./setup.sh -e 'restore_backup_file=/path/to/nondefault/location' -r

After calling ./setup.sh with the appropriate parameters, Tower is installed on the appropriate machines as has been configured. Setup installs Tower from RPM or Deb packages using repositories hosted on ansible.com.

Once setup is complete, use your web browser to access the Tower server and view the Tower login screen. Your Tower server is accessible from port 80 (http://tower.company.com/).

If the installation of Tower fails and you are a customer who has purchased a valid license for Ansible Tower, please contact Ansible via the Red Hat Customer portal at https://access.redhat.com/.

3.4. Changing the Password¶

Once installed, if you log into the Tower instance via SSH, the default admin password is provided in the prompt. You can then change it with the following command (as root or as AWX user):

tower-manage changepassword admin

After that, the password you have entered will work as the admin password in the web UI.