AWX on Single Node K3s

An example implementation of AWX on single node K3s using AWX Operator, with easy-to-use simplified configuration with ownership of data and passwords.

• Accesible over HTTPS from remote host
• All data will be stored under /data
• Fixed (configurable) passwords for AWX and PostgreSQL
• Fixed (configurable) versions of AWX and PostgreSQL

Table of Contents

• Environment
• References
• Requirements
• Procedure
  • Prepare CentOS Stream 8 host
  • Install K3s
  • Install AWX Operator
  • Prepare required files
  • Deploy AWX
• Backing up and Restoring using AWX Operator
  • Backing up using AWX Operator
    • Prepare for Backup
    • Invoke Manual Backup
  • Restoring using AWX Operator
    • Prepare for Restore
    • Invoke Manual Restore
• Additional Guides

Environment

• Tested on:
  • CentOS Stream 8 (Minimal)
  • K3s v1.22.6+k3s1
• Products that will be deployed:
  • AWX Operator 0.17.0
  • AWX 20.0.0
  • PostgreSQL 12

References

• K3s - Lightweight Kubernetes
• INSTALL.md on ansible/awx @20.0.0
• README.md on ansible/awx-operator @0.17.0

Requirements

• Computing resources
  • 2 CPUs and 4 GiB RAM minimum.
  • It's recommended to add more CPUs and RAM (like 4 CPUs and 8 GiB RAM or more) to avoid performance issue and job scheduling issue.
  • The files in this repository are configured to ignore resource requirements which specified by AWX Operator by default.
• Storage resources
  • At least 10 GiB for /var/lib/rancher and 10 GiB for /data are safe for fresh install.
  • Both will be grown during lifetime and actual consumption highly depends on your environment and your usecase, so you should to pay attention to the consumption and add more capacity if required.
  • /var/lib/rancher will be created and consumed by K3s and related data like container images and overlayfs.
  • /data will be created in this guide and used to store AWX-related databases and files.

Procedure

Prepare CentOS Stream 8 host

Disable Firewalld. This is recommended by K3s.

sudo systemctl disable firewalld --now

Install required packages to deploy AWX Operator and AWX.

sudo dnf install -y git make

Install K3s

Install K3s with --write-kubeconfig-mode 644 to make config file (/etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml) readable by non-root user.

curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh -s - --write-kubeconfig-mode 644

Install AWX Operator

Install specified version of AWX Operator. Note that this procedure is applicable only for AWX Operator 0.14.0 or later. If you want to deploy 0.13.0 or earlier version of AWX Operator, refer 📝Tips: Deploy older version of AWX Operator.

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/ansible/awx-operator.git
cd awx-operator
git checkout 0.17.0

Export the name of the namespace where you want to deploy AWX Operator as the environment variable NAMESPACE and run make deploy. The default namespace is awx.

export NAMESPACE=awx
make deploy

The AWX Operator will be deployed to the namespace you specified.

$ kubectl -n awx get all
NAME                                                   READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/awx-operator-controller-manager-68d787cfbd-kjfg7   2/2     Running   0          16s

NAME                                                      TYPE        CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)    AGE
service/awx-operator-controller-manager-metrics-service   ClusterIP   10.43.150.245   <none>        8443/TCP   16s

NAME                                              READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
deployment.apps/awx-operator-controller-manager   1/1     1            1           16s

NAME                                                         DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
replicaset.apps/awx-operator-controller-manager-68d787cfbd   1         1         1       16s

Prepare required files

Clone this repository and change directory.

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/kurokobo/awx-on-k3s.git
cd awx-on-k3s

Generate a Self-Signed certificate. Note that IP address can't be specified. If you want to use a certificate from public ACME CA such as Let's Encrypt or ZeroSSL instead of Self-Signed certificate, follow the guide on 📁 Use SSL Certificate from Public ACME CA first and come back to this step when done.

AWX_HOST="awx.example.com"
openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 3650 -newkey rsa:2048 -out ./base/tls.crt -keyout ./base/tls.key -subj "/CN=${AWX_HOST}/O=${AWX_HOST}" -addext "subjectAltName = DNS:${AWX_HOST}"

Modify hostname in base/awx.yaml.

...
spec:
  ...
  ingress_type: ingress
  ingress_tls_secret: awx-secret-tls
  hostname: awx.example.com     👈👈👈
...

Modify two passwords in base/kustomization.yaml.

...
  - name: awx-postgres-configuration
    type: Opaque
    literals:
      - host=awx-postgres
      - port=5432
      - database=awx
      - username=awx
      - password=Ansible123!     👈👈👈
      - type=managed

  - name: awx-admin-password
    type: Opaque
    literals:
      - password=Ansible123!     👈👈👈
...

Prepare directories for Persistent Volumes defined in base/pv.yaml. These directories will be used to store your databases and project files.

sudo mkdir -p /data/postgres
sudo mkdir -p /data/projects
sudo chmod 755 /data/postgres
sudo chown 1000:0 /data/projects

Deploy AWX

Deploy AWX, this takes few minutes to complete.

kubectl apply -k base

To monitor the progress of the deployment, check the logs of deployments/awx-operator-controller-manager:

kubectl -n awx logs -f deployments/awx-operator-controller-manager -c awx-manager

When the deployment completes successfully, the logs end with:

$ kubectl -n awx logs -f deployments/awx-operator-controller-manager -c awx-manager
...
----- Ansible Task Status Event StdOut (awx.ansible.com/v1beta1, Kind=AWX, awx/awx) -----
PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=65   changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=43   rescued=0    ignored=0
----------

Required objects has been deployed next to AWX Operator in awx namespace.

$ kubectl -n awx get awx,all,ingress,secrets
NAME                      AGE
awx.awx.ansible.com/awx   4m17s

NAME                                                   READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/awx-operator-controller-manager-68d787cfbd-j6k7z   2/2     Running   0          7m43s
pod/awx-postgres-0                                     1/1     Running   0          4m6s
pod/awx-84d5c45999-h7xm4                               4/4     Running   0          3m59s

NAME                                                      TYPE        CLUSTER-IP      EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)    AGE
service/awx-operator-controller-manager-metrics-service   ClusterIP   10.43.134.67    <none>        8443/TCP   7m43s
service/awx-postgres                                      ClusterIP   None            <none>        5432/TCP   4m6s
service/awx-service                                       ClusterIP   10.43.232.137   <none>        80/TCP     4m

NAME                                              READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
deployment.apps/awx-operator-controller-manager   1/1     1            1           7m43s
deployment.apps/awx                               1/1     1            1           3m59s

NAME                                                         DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
replicaset.apps/awx-operator-controller-manager-68d787cfbd   1         1         1       7m43s
replicaset.apps/awx-84d5c45999                               1         1         1       3m59s

NAME                            READY   AGE
statefulset.apps/awx-postgres   1/1     4m6s

NAME                                    CLASS    HOSTS             ADDRESS         PORTS     AGE
ingress.networking.k8s.io/awx-ingress   <none>   awx.example.com   192.168.0.100   80, 443   4m

NAME                                                 TYPE                                  DATA   AGE
secret/default-token-6tp55                           kubernetes.io/service-account-token   3      7m43s
secret/awx-operator-controller-manager-token-sz6wq   kubernetes.io/service-account-token   3      7m43s
secret/awx-admin-password                            Opaque                                1      4m17s
secret/awx-postgres-configuration                    Opaque                                6      4m17s
secret/awx-secret-tls                                kubernetes.io/tls                     2      4m17s
secret/awx-app-credentials                           Opaque                                3      4m2s
secret/awx-token-jfndh                               kubernetes.io/service-account-token   3      4m2s
secret/awx-secret-key                                Opaque                                1      4m13s
secret/awx-broadcast-websocket                       Opaque                                1      4m9s

Now your AWX is available at https://awx.example.com/ or the hostname you specified.

At this point, however, AWX can be accessed via HTTP as well as HTTPS. If you want to redirect HTTP to HTTPS, see 📝Tips: Redirect HTTP to HTTPS.

Backing up and Restoring using AWX Operator

The AWX Operator 0.10.0 or later has the ability to backup and restore AWX in easy way.

Backing up using AWX Operator

Prepare for Backup

Prepare directories for Persistent Volumes to store backup files that defined in backup/pv.yaml.

sudo mkdir -p /data/backup

Then deploy Persistent Volume and Persistent Volume Claim.

kubectl apply -k backup

Invoke Manual Backup

Modify the name of the AWXBackup object in backup/awxbackup.yaml.

...
kind: AWXBackup
metadata:
  name: awxbackup-2021-06-06     👈👈👈
  namespace: awx
...

Then invoke backup by applying this manifest file.

kubectl apply -f backup/awxbackup.yaml

To monitor the progress of the deployment, check the logs of deployments/awx-operator-controller-manager:

kubectl -n awx logs -f deployments/awx-operator-controller-manager -c awx-manager

When the backup completes successfully, the logs end with:

$ kubectl -n awx logs -f deployments/awx-operator-controller-manager -c awx-manager
...
----- Ansible Task Status Event StdOut (awx.ansible.com/v1beta1, Kind=AWXBackup, awxbackup-2021-06-06/awx) -----
PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=3    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=7    rescued=0    ignored=0
----------

This will create AWXBackup object in the namespace and also create backup files in the Persistent Volume. In this example those files are available at /data/backup.

$ kubectl -n awx get awxbackup
NAME                   AGE
awxbackup-2021-06-06   6m47s

$ ls -l /data/backup/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 59 Jun  5 06:51 tower-openshift-backup-2021-06-06-10:51:49

$ ls -l /data/backup/tower-openshift-backup-2021-06-06-10\:51\:49/
total 736
-rw-r--r--. 1 root             root    749 Jun  6 06:51 awx_object
-rw-r--r--. 1 root             root    482 Jun  6 06:51 secrets.yml
-rw-------. 1 systemd-coredump root 745302 Jun  6 06:51 tower.db

Note that if you are using AWX Operator 0.12.0 or earlier, the contents of the Secret that passed through ingress_tls_secret parameter will not be included in this backup files. If necessary, get a dump of this Secret, or keep original certificate file and key file. In 0.13.0 or later, this secret is included in the backup file therefore you can ignore this step.

kubectl get secret awx-secret-tls -n awx -o yaml > awx-secret-tls.yaml

Restoring using AWX Operator

To perfom restoration, you need to have AWX Operator running on Kubernetes. If you are planning to restore to a new environment, first prepare Kubernetes and AWX Operator by referring to the instructions on this page.

It is strongly recommended that the version of AWX Operator is the same as the version when the backup was taken. This is because the structure of the backup files differs between versions and may not be compatible. If you have upgraded AWX Operator after taking the backup, it is recommended to downgrade it for the restore. To deploy 0.13.0 or earlier version of AWX Operator, refer 📝Tips: Deploy older version of AWX Operator

Prepare for Restore

If your PV, PVC, and Secret still exist, no preparation is required.

If you are restoring the entire AWX to a new environment, create the PVs and PVCs first to be restored.

sudo mkdir -p /data/postgres
sudo mkdir -p /data/projects
sudo chmod 755 /data/postgres
sudo chown 1000:0 /data/projects

Then deploy Persistent Volume and Persistent Volume Claim.

kubectl apply -k restore

Invoke Manual Restore

Modify the name of the AWXRestore object in restore/awxrestore.yaml.

...
kind: AWXRestore
metadata:
  name: awxrestore-2021-06-06     👈👈👈
  namespace: awx
...

If you want to restore from AWXBackup object, specify its name in restore/awxrestore.yaml.

...
  # Parameters to restore from AWXBackup object
  backup_pvc_namespace: awx
  backup_name: awxbackup-2021-06-06     👈👈👈
...

If the AWXBackup object no longer exists, place the backup files and specify the name of the PVC and directory in restore/awxrestore.yaml.

...
  # Parameters to restore from existing files on PVC (without AWXBackup object)
  backup_pvc_namespace: awx
  backup_pvc: awx-backup-claim     👈👈👈
  backup_dir: /backups/tower-openshift-backup-2021-06-06-10:51:49     👈👈👈
...

Then invoke restore by applying this manifest file.

kubectl apply -f restore/awxrestore.yaml

To monitor the progress of the deployment, check the logs of deployments/awx-operator-controller-manager:

kubectl -n awx logs -f deployments/awx-operator-controller-manager -c awx-manager

When the restore complete successfully, the logs end with:

$ kubectl -n awx logs -f deployments/awx-operator-controller-manager -c awx-manager
...
----- Ansible Task Status Event StdOut (awx.ansible.com/v1beta1, Kind=AWX, awx/awx) -----
PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=67   changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=41   rescued=0    ignored=0
----------

This will create AWXRestore object in the namespace, and now your AWX is restored.

$ kubectl -n awx get awxrestore
NAME                    AGE
awxrestore-2021-06-06   137m

Note that if you are using AWX Operator 0.12.0 or earlier, the Secret for TLS should be manually restored (or create newly using original certificate and key file). This step is not required for 0.13.0 or later.

kubectl apply -f awx-secret-tls.yaml

Additional Guides

• 📁 Deploy Private Git Repository on Kubernetes
  • The guide to use AWX with SCM. This repository includes the manifests to deploy Gitea.
• 📁 Deploy Private Container Registry on Kubernetes
  • The guide to use Execution Environments in AWX (AWX-EE).
  • If we want to use our own Execution Environment built with Ansible Builder and don't want to push it to the public container registry e.g. Docker Hub, we can deploy a private container registry on K3s.
• 📁 Deploy Private Galaxy NG on Docker or Kubernetes (Experimental)
  • The guide to deploy our own Galaxy NG instance.
  • Note that the containerized implementation of Galaxy NG is not officialy supported at this time.
  • All information on the guide is for development, testing and study purposes only.
• 📁 Use SSL Certificate from Public ACME CA
  • The guide to use a certificate from public ACME CA such as Let's Encrypt or ZeroSSL instead of Self-Signed certificate.
• 📁 Use Ansible Builder
  • The guide to use Ansible Builder to build our own Execution Environment.
• 📁 Use Ansible Runner
  • The guide to use Ansible Runner to run playbook using Execution Environment.
• 📁 Use Customized Pod Specification for your Execution Environment
  • The guide to use customized Pod of the Execution Environment using Container Group.
• 📁 Tips
  • 📝Deploy AWX using external PostgreSQL database
  • 📝Trust custom Certificate Authority
  • 📝Expose /etc/hosts to Pods on K3s
  • 📝Redirect HTTP to HTTPS
  • 📝Uninstall deployed resouces
  • 📝Deploy older version of AWX Operator
  • 📝Upgrade AWX Operator and AWX
  • 📝Workaround for the rate limit on Docker Hub
  • 📝Troubleshooting Guide