Install AWX on K3S

Since version 18, AWX, the comunity edition of ansible tower gets deployed by a kubernetes operator.
This makes it easier to install and maintain the installation, but not all of us are familiar with kubernetes and operators.
So I share a short step by step guide on how to setup ansible awx in a "semi professional" way on a single k3s kubernetes node.

1 VM Setup

1.1 VM requirements

Just setup a CentOS8 minimal VM with the following requirements

• OS: centos8 minimal

• CPU: 2
• MEM: 8GB (6 GB may work as well)
• DISK: 40G (7GB used on a fresh setup)

1.2 Prepare OS

dnf -y upgrade
dnf -y install setroubleshoot-server curl lsof wget make

sed -i  '/swap/d' /etc/fstab
swapoff -a

firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-service=https
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-masquerade --permanent
firewall-cmd --reload
reboot

2 Setup K3S

curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh

cat /etc/systemd/system/k3s.service
systemctl status k3s

kubectl get nodes
# all pods in running state? fine!
kubectl get pods --all-namespaces

# install kustomize
cd /usr/local/sbin/
curl -s "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes-sigs/kustomize/master/hack/install_kustomize.sh"  | bash

3 Deploy AWX

export NAMESPACE=awx
kubectl create namespace $NAMESPACE
kubectl config set-context --namespace=$NAMESPACE --current

cd ; mkdir awx ; cd awx
vim kustomization.yaml
------------
---
apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Kustomization
resources:
  # Find the latest tag here: https://github.com/ansible/awx-operator/releases
  - github.com/ansible/awx-operator/config/default?ref=0.20.0
  - awx-bitbull.yml

# Set the image tags to match the git version from above
images:
  - name: quay.io/ansible/awx-operator
    newTag: 0.20.0

# Specify a custom namespace in which to install AWX
namespace: awx
------------

vim awx-bitbull.yml
------------
---
apiVersion: awx.ansible.com/v1beta1
kind: AWX
metadata:
  name: bitbull
spec:
  ingress_type: route
  route_host: ansible.apps.bitbull.ch
  route_tls_termination_mechanism: Edge
------------

kustomize build . | kubectl apply -f -

4 Fetch the secret and test the login

kubectl get secret bitbull-admin-password -o jsonpath='{.data.password}' | base64 --decode

firefox https://fqdn.domain.com

• user: admin

5 Links

• https://rancher.com/docs/k3s/latest/en/quick-start/
• https://rancher.com/docs/k3s/latest/en/backup-restore/
• https://github.com/ansible/awx-operator

6 Debug Notes

6.1 Open Node Port for direct access

PORT=$(kubectl describe svc awx-service | grep NodePort: | awk '{print $3}' | tr 'A-Z' 'a-z')
echo PORT=$PORT
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=$PORT

6.2 Disable SELinux

setenforce 0
> /var/log/audit/audit.log 
# do some bad things
sealert -a /var/log/audit/audit.log

6.3 Traefik Config

- https://levelup.gitconnected.com/a-guide-to-k3s-ingress-using-traefik-with-nodeport-6eb29add0b4b

kubectl -n kube-system edit cm traefik

6.4 Jump into container for debugging

# get pods
kubectl get pods
# get containers inside of pods
kubectl describe <pod-name>

kubectl exec --stdin --tty <pod-name> -c <container-name> -- /bin/bash

7 Notes

7.1 Backup

vim awx-backup.yml

---
apiVersion: awx.ansible.com/v1beta1
kind: AWXBackup
metadata:
  name: awxbackup-20220311
  namespace: awx
spec:
  deployment_name: awx
...

oc apply -f awx-backup.yml

oc get awxbackups awxbackup-20220311 -o yaml

apiVersion: awx.ansible.com/v1beta1
kind: AWXBackup
...
name: awxbackup-20220311
...
status:
  backupClaim: awx-backup-claim
  backupDirectory: /backups/tower-openshift-backup-2022-03-11-05:45:56
  conditions:
  - lastTransitionTime: "2022-03-11T05:45:07Z"
    reason: Successful
    status: "True"
    type: Running

Keep that as well for DR reason

oc get awxbackups awxbackup-20220311 -o yaml > awxbackup-20220311.yml

ll /srv/nfs/pv05/tower-openshift-backup-2022-03-11-05\:45\:56/
total 13072
-rw-r--r--. 1 1000680000 root      600 Mar 11 06:46 awx_object
-rw-r--r--. 1 1000680000 root      670 Mar 11 06:46 secrets.yml
-rw-------. 1 1000680000 root 13377441 Mar 11 06:46 tower.db

7.2 Restore

vim awx-restore.yml

---
apiVersion: awx.ansible.com/v1beta1
kind: AWXRestore
metadata:
  name: awxrestore-20230221
  namespace: awx
spec:
  deployment_name: bitbull
  backup_pvc_namespace: awx
  backup_dir: /backups/tower-openshift-backup-2023-02-20-17:04:58
  backup_pvc: awx-backup-claim
...

oc apply -f awx-restore.yml

oc get awxrestores -o yaml

7.3 okd 4.10 instance template

apiVersion: awx.ansible.com/v1beta1
kind: AWX
metadata:
  name: bitbull
spec:
  ingress_type: route
  route_host: awx.domain.com
  route_tls_termination_mechanism: edge

7.4 AWX CLI

• https://github.com/ansible/awx/blob/devel/INSTALL.md#installing-the-awx-cli

pip3 install awxkit
export TOWER_HOST=https://awx.domain.com TOWER_USERNAME=admin TOWER_PASSWORD=xxx
awx login admin
awx export > export.json