ARA on RHEL7 - Welcome to Hell

When you try to run ARA with Ansible on a RHEL7 server you end up with dependencies, things not available on RHEL7, illogical configuration settings and more.

I have solved all these troubles for you and in this presentation you can see how.

Absolutely needed disclaimer: On RHEL8 and CentOS8 it works out of the box!!

Transcript

1. v1b – TonK – 1
   ARA on RHEL7
   Ton Kersten
   Ghent / Belgium / 2020
   Welcome to hell
   

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2. v1b – TonK – 2
   $ who am i
   ---
   - name: Ton Kersten
   creds:
   work: UNIX/Linux consultant and Trainer @ AT Computing
   osses: UNIX/Linux Geek
   cfgmgmt: Configuration Management Addict
   - ansible:
   - Ansible user and contributor since 2012
   - Ansible Ambassador since 2015
   - Certified Specialist in Ansible Automation
   - puppet:
   - Puppet user since 2009
   foss: Free and Open Source Software Enthusiast
   works: Big fan of things that just work
   

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3. v1b – TonK – 3
   ARA – What is it
   From the ARA website:
   ARA Records Ansible playbooks and makes them easier to
   understand and troubleshoot.
   ARA saves playbook results to a local or remote database by
   using an Ansible callback plugin and provides an API to integrate
   this data in tools and interfaces.
   

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4. v1b – TonK – 4
   ARA – The early days
   # pip install ara
   Configure Ansible
   # ara-manage runserver
   Connect browser to port 8080
   

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5. v1b – TonK – 5
   ARA – Now – backend
   Human Ansible ARA Callback ARA API server Database
   Ansible
   Playbook
   ①
   Callback
   Hooks
   ②
   Save to
   Database
   ④
   Send
   Data
   ③
   Return
   Results
   ⑤
   Hook
   Returns
   ⑥
   ⑦
   

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6. v1b – TonK – 6
   ARA – Now – Problems
   Human Ansible ARA Callback ARA API server Database
   Need
   Python 3.5+
   Python 2.7
   by default
   RHEL7 and CentOS7
   have no Python3 by default
   

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7. v1b – TonK – 7
   ARA – Solution?
   Human Ansible ARA Callback ARA API server Database
   Install Python3
   Ansible needs
   to come from
   PyPi
   No automatic
   updates
   No support
   by Red Hat
   Run Ansible
   in
   virtual env
   

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8. v1b – TonK – 8
   ARA – Frontend – NodeJS
   ARA Web Needs NodeJS
   In repository
   is too old
   Install from
   Internet
   No automatic
   updates
   No support
   by Red Hat
   

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9. v1b – TonK – 9
   ARA – Frontend – Connection error
   ARA Web No connection!!
   Not
   documented
   Searching
   internet
   Need whitelist
   in config
   

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10. v1b – TonK – 10
    ARA – Frontend – No access
    ARA Web
    Access
    denied!! Not
    documented
    Searching
    internet
    Nothing
    found
    No localhost
    but
    192.168.0.10
    Chatting
    on IRC
    

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11. v1b – TonK – 11
    ARA – Frontend – Database error
    ARA Web
    No table
    'playbooks' Not
    documented
    Searching
    internet
    Nothing
    found
    Migration
    needed??
    Chatting
    on IRC
    

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12. v1b – TonK – 12
    ARA – Steps needed
    ●
    Install Python3
    ●
    Install Ansible through pip3
    ●
    Install ARA server through pip3
    ●
    Install npm
    ●
    Install django version 2.1
    ●
    Configure ARA server (settings.yaml)
    ●
    Migrate ARA server database (when SQLite)
    ●
    Install NodeJS from the website
    ●
    Clone ARA Web
    ●
    Run npm install, npm audit fix and npm update
    ●
    Configure shell settings
    ●
    Start ARA Server and ARA Web
    Example script: http://tonkersten.com/files/makeara
    

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13. v1b – TonK – 13
    ARA – This is now
    

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14. v1b – TonK – 14
    Questions
    –
    – Ton.Kersten@ATComputing.nl
    – Santa@TonKersten.com
    –
    – http://www.atcomputing.nl
    – http://www.tonkersten.com
    – https://github.com/tonk
    – https://speakerdeck.com/tonk
    – @TonKersten on Twitter
    – TKersten on IRC
    Contact me
    

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