15. Execution Environments¶

15.1. Building an Execution Environment¶

Using Ansible content that depends on non-default dependencies (custom virtual environments) can be tricky. Packages must be installed on each node, play nicely with other software installed on the host system, and be kept in sync. Previously, jobs ran inside of a virtual environment at /var/lib/awx/venv/ansible by default, which was pre-loaded with dependencies for ansible-runner and certain types of Ansible content used by the Ansible control machine.

To help simplify this process, container images can be built that serve as Ansible control nodes. These container images are referred to as automation execution environments, which you can create with ansible-builder and then ansible-runner can make use of those images.

---
version: 3
dependencies:
  galaxy: requirements.yml

---
collections:
  - name: awx.awx

$ ansible-builder build
...
STEP 7: COMMIT my-awx-ee
--> 09c930f5f6a
09c930f5f6ac329b7ddb321b144a029dbbfcc83bdfc77103968b7f6cdfc7bea2
Complete! The build context can be found at: context

15.2. Use an execution environment in jobs¶

In order to use an execution environment in a job, a few components are required:

• An execution environment must have been created using ansible-builder. See Build an execution environment for detail. Once an execution environment is created, you can use it to run jobs. Use the automation controller user interface to specify the execution environment to use in your job templates.

• Depending on whether an execution environment is made available for global use or tied to an organization, you must have the appropriate level of administrator privileges in order to use an execution environment in a job. Execution environments tied to an organization require Organization administrators to be able to run jobs with those execution environments.

• Before running a job or job template that uses an execution environment that has a credential assigned to it, be sure that the credential contains a username, host, and password.

1. Click Execution Environments from the left navigation bar of the controller user interface.

2. Add an execution environment by selecting the Add button.

3. Enter the appropriate details into the following fields:

• Name: Enter a name for the execution environment (required).

• Image: Enter the image name (required). The image name requires its full location (repo), the registry, image name, and version tag in the example format of quay.io/ansible/awx-ee:latestrepo/project/image-name:tag.

• Pull: optionally choose the type of pull when running jobs:

• Always pull container before running: Pulls the latest image file for the container.

• Only pull the image if not present before running: Only pulls latest image if none specified.

• Never pull container before running: Never pull the latest version of the container image.

• Description: optional.

• Organization: optionally assign the organization to specifically use this execution environment. To make the execution environment available for use across multiple organizations, leave this field blank.

• Registry credential: If the image has a protected container registry, provide the credential to access it.

4. Click Save.

Now your newly added execution environment is ready to be used in a job template. To add an execution environment to a job template, specify it in the Execution Environment field of the job template, as shown in the example below. For more information on setting up a job template, see Job Templates in the Automation Controller User Guide.

Once you added an execution environment to a job template, you can see those templates listed in the Templates tab of the execution environment:

15.3. Execution environment mount options¶

Rebuilding an execution environment is one way to add certs, but inheriting certs from the host provides a more convenient solution. For VM-based installs, the controller automatically mounts the system trust store in the execution environment when jobs run.

Additionally, you may customize execution environment mount options and mount paths in the Paths to expose to isolated jobs field of the Job Settings page, where it supports podman-style volume mount syntax. Refer to the Podman documentation for detail.

In some cases where the /etc/ssh/* files were added to the execution environment image due to customization of an execution environment, an SSH error may occur. For example, exposing the /etc/ssh/ssh_config.d:/etc/ssh/ssh_config.d:O path allows the container to be mounted, but the ownership permissions are not mapped correctly.

If you encounter this error, or have upgraded from an older version of the controller (e.g. 3.8.x), perform the following steps:

1. Change the container ownership on the mounted volume to root.

2. In the Paths to expose to isolated jobs field of the Job Settings page, using the current example, expose the path as such:

This informs podman to run a command similar to the example below, where the configuration is mounted and the ssh command works as expected.

podman run -v /ssh_config:/etc/ssh/ssh_config.d/:O ...

To expose isolated paths in OpenShift or Kubernetes containers as HostPath, assume the following configuration:

Use the Expose host paths for Container Groups toggle to enable it.

Once the playbook runs, the resulting Pod spec will display similar to the example below. Note the details of the volumeMounts and volumes sections.