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Minikube AWX Setup

Mar 23, 2024, 6 min read

Acknowledgement

The instructions followed in this setup guide were adapted from the official AWX Operator documentation, specifically the Basic Installation Guide provided by the Ansible AWX Operator GitHub repository.

Note

This setup guide assumes Minikube is installed and configured on our system. Minikube documentation.

Step 1: Start Minikube

Starting Minikube with sufficient resources.

minikube start --cpus=4 --memory=6g --addons=ingress

Making sure Minikube is up and running:

minikube status

Output:

type: Control 
Plane host: 
Running kubelet: 
Running apiserver: 
Running kubeconfig: Configured

Step 2: Set Up AWX Operator Namespace

Creating a new namespace for AWX in the Kubernetes cluster called “awx” using the following command:

kubectl create namespace awx

Output:

namespace/awx created

Step 3: Create kustomization.yaml File

  1. Creating kustomization.yaml file in the directory where we’re working with the following content
nano kustomization.yaml
apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1 
kind: Kustomization 
resources: 
# 2.5.3 
- github.com/ansible/awx-operator/config/default?ref=2.5.3
# Set the image tags to match the git version from above 
images:
- name: quay.io/ansible/awx-operator
newTag: 2.5.3
# Specify a custom namespace in which to install AWX 
namespace: awx

The latest tag/version here. Using version 2.5.3

  1. Save and exit the file.

To install the AWX operator into the awx namespace we run kubectl apply -k .

kubectl apply -k .

AWX Operator has been successfully deployed to the awx namespace in the Kubernetes cluster.

Step 4: Creating an AWX instance.

  1. Creating a new YAML file called awx-demo.yaml in the same directory.
nano awx-demo.yaml
  1. Added the following content to awx-demo.yaml:
--- 
apiVersion: awx.ansible.com/v1beta1 
kind: AWX 
metadata: 
name: awx-demo 
spec: 
service_type: nodeport

  1. Save and exit the file.

  2. Now we modify kustomization.yaml to include this new awx-demo.yaml as a resource.

nano kustomization.yaml
  1. Added the - awx-demo.yaml line under resources, like so:
apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1 
kind: Kustomization 
resources: 
  - github.com/ansible/awx-operator/config/default?ref=2.5.3 
  - awx-demo.yaml# Add this line
 
# rest of settings...

  1. Save and exit the file.

  2. Applying the changes to create the AWX instance:

kubectl apply -k .

This should deploy an AWX instance named awx-demo in the awx namespace.

Step 5: Checking Pod Status

Checking to see if the AWX Operator pods are running as expected:

kubectl get pods -n awx

Command 'kubectl' not found 

hector@hector-HP-Compaq-Elite-8300-CMT:~$ kubectl get pods -n awx
Command 'kubectl' not found, but can be installed with:
 
sudo snap install kubectl

Not sure what happened with kubectl especially since we used it successfully in earlier steps.

Solution 

sudo snap install kubectl --classic

Verifying kubectlinstallation

hector@hector-HP-Compaq-Elite-8300-CMT:~$ kubectl version --client
Client Version: v1.28.2
Kustomize Version: v5.0.4-0.20230601165947-6ce0bf390ce3
hector@hector-HP-Compaq-Elite-8300-CMT:~$

Checking if the AWX Operator has been successfully deployed.

kubectl get pods -n awx

We should see the operator pod(s) listed, along with their current status.

hector@hector-HP-Compaq-Elite-8300-CMT:~$ kubectl get pods -n awx
NAME                                               READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
awx-operator-controller-manager-566b76fc7f-mbkw2   2/2     Running   0          94m

The AWX Operator is running

Now we create the AWX Custom Resource by creating a new YAML file awx-demo.yaml with the following content:

apiVersion: awx.ansible.com/v1beta1 
kind: AWX 
metadata:   
  name: awx-demo 
spec:   
  service_type: nodeport

We create this file in the same directory as your kustomization.yaml.

After we update kustomization.yaml file to include the new resource:

resources:   
  - github.com/ansible/awx-operator/config/default?ref=2.5.3   
  - awx-demo.yaml

awx-demo.yaml 

apiVersion: awx.ansible.com/v1beta1 
kind: AWX 
metadata: 
  name: awx-demo 
spec: 
  service_type: nodeport

kustomization.yaml 

apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1 
kind: Kustomization 
resources: 
  - github.com/ansible/awx-operator/config/default?ref=2.5.3 
  - awx-demo.yaml 
images: 
  - name: quay.io/ansible/awx-operator 
    newTag: 2.5.3

Applying the changes (This should deploy the AWX instance)

kubectl apply -k .

The output shows awx.awx.ansible.com/awx-demo created, which indicates that the AWX custom resource has been applied.

We can now monitor the status of the AWX pods by running:

kubectl get pods -n awx

Waited until all pods are in a Running or Completed state.

Output:

hector@hector-HP-Compaq-Elite-8300-CMT:~$ kubectl get pods -n awx
NAME                                               READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
awx-demo-postgres-13-0                             1/1     Running   0          8m58s
awx-demo-task-6dfdb95d67-khdg9                     4/4     Running   0          7m33s
awx-demo-web-668448b5f7-g6rcp                      3/3     Running   0          5m31s
awx-operator-controller-manager-566b76fc7f-mbkw2   2/2     Running   0          108m

All the AWX pods are running

Step 6: Accessing AWX Web Interface

Once all the pods are running, we should be able to access the AWX web interface. Since we specified service_type: nodeport in awx-demo.yaml, we can find out the NodePort on which AWX is exposed by running:

kubectl get svc -n awx

This will display the services in the AWX namespace and should show which port is mapped to the AWX service.

hector@hector-HP-Compaq-Elite-8300-CMT:~$ kubectl get svc -n awx
NAME                                              TYPE        CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)        AGE
awx-demo-postgres-13                              ClusterIP   None            <none>        5432/TCP       9m6s
awx-demo-service                                  NodePort    10.107.150.99   <none>        80:32701/TCP   7m43s
awx-operator-controller-manager-metrics-service   ClusterIP   10.111.92.229   <none>        8443/TCP       108m
hector@hector-HP-Compaq-Elite-8300-CMT:~$

The NodePort for the AWX service is 32701.

To access the AWX web interface, we’ll need to browse to the Minikube node’s IP address on that port. We can get the Minikube node’s IP address with the following command:

minikube ip

Output:

hector@hector-HP-Compaq-Elite-8300-CMT:~$ minikube ip 192.168.59.100

We should now be able to access the AWX web interface by opening a web browser and navigating to http://192.168.59.100:32701/.

Step 7: Retrieving AWX Admin Credentials

Sometimes the AWX deployment might use randomly generated credentials. These should be stored in a Kubernetes secret.

To find these credentials, you can run:

kubectl get secret -n awx

Output:

hector@hector-HP-Compaq-Elite-8300-CMT:~$ kubectl get secrets -n awx
NAME                              TYPE                DATA   AGE
awx-demo-admin-password           Opaque              1      19m
awx-demo-app-credentials          Opaque              3      17m
awx-demo-broadcast-websocket      Opaque              1      19m
awx-demo-postgres-configuration   Opaque              6      19m
awx-demo-receptor-ca              kubernetes.io/tls   2      17m
awx-demo-receptor-work-signing    Opaque              2      17m
awx-demo-secret-key               Opaque              1      19m
redhat-operators-pull-secret      Opaque              1      19m

We look for a secret related to the AWX admin credentials, which might be named something like awx-demo-admin-password or similar

Then, to extract and decode the admin password, we can describe the secret:

kubectl get secret awx-demo-admin-password -n awx -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 --decode

Output:

hector@hector-HP-Compaq-Elite-8300-CMT:~$ kubectl get secret awx-demo-admin-password -n awx -o jsonpath="{.data.password}" | base64 --decode
R7MDNVbg6sTWtypXgAJA4EFOoMDOo8Uh
hector@hector-HP-Compaq-Elite-8300-CMT:~$

Now we know the credentials

  • Username: admin
  • Password: R7MDNVbg6sTWtypXgAJA4EFOoMDOo8Uh

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