Configuring Ansible AWX Observer jobs

Using the Ansible AWX Observer, you can define load jobs that will gather and read data from a defined Ansible AWX instance. When a load job is run, it will load a baseline topology data view from Ansible AWX through its REST APIs.

Before you begin

Important: The Ansible AWX Observer supports the on-premise Ansible AWX version 21.14.0 and Tower API version 3.8.6.

The Ansible AWX Observer is installed as part of the core installation procedure.

Ensure you have the Ansible AWX details to hand, such as the host, port, user and token before defining and running the observer job.
Required: Before defining the observer load job, you must obtain a personal access token (PAT) from AWX. The token authentication is recommended for the usage of Tower's API.
  1. Access the AWX UI.
  2. From the menu bar, navigate to the Users page that is under the Access section.
  3. Select a username, then click the Token option.
  4. Click on the + (plus) icon.
  5. Leave the application field blank, and choose read for the token’s access.

About this task

The Ansible AWX Observer imports ITSM Resource Topology Service data to Agile Service Manager.

You define and start the following job. You must edit the parameters in the configuration file before running this job.
Full Topology Upload job (via restapi)
By default, these jobs are one-off, transient jobs that perform a full upload of all requested topology data as soon as they are triggered.
You can also run these jobs (again) manually from the Observer UI, or schedule them to run at set times when configuring them.

Procedure

  1. On the Observer jobs page, perform one of the following actions:
    To edit an existing job
    Open the List of options overflow menu next to the job and click View & edit.
    To create a new job
    Click Add a new job + and select the AWX Observer tile.
  2. Enter or edit the following parameters, then click Save to save your job and begin retrieving information.
    Table 1. Ansible AWX Observer Load job parameters
    Parameter Action Details
    Unique ID Enter a unique name for the job. Required
    Ansible AWX hostname Specify the Ansible AWX hostname. Required
    Ansible AWX host port Specify the Ansible AWX host port. Required
    Username (owner) of the personal access token (PAT) Specify the username (owner) of the personal access token (PAT). Required
    Personal access token (PAT) Specify the personal access token (PAT). Required. Use plain text.
    HTTPS trustStore file name Specify the trustStore file name.
    Tip: You can use the observer name (<observer>.jks) for example ansible.jks.
    		 Required. For both on-prem and OCP, provide the JKS name, and the observer will then create the JKS file accordingly.
    trustStore file password Specify the trustStore file password. Required. Use plain text.
    Target system certificate Specify a certificate by name to load into the trustStore.
    Required. For more information, see Configuring observer job security.
    On-prem
    Create and store the certificate in the ASM_HOME/security directory.
    OCP
    Obtain the authentication certificate using OpenSSL and store it as a secret.
    SSL verification Choose whether SSL validation is true or false. Turning SSL validation to false will use HTTPS without host verification. Optional
    Number of jobs to display for each template Specify the number of recent jobs that will be modeled on the topology for each of the job template. Max value is 50. Larger value might result in the topology being less perceptible. Optional
    Connection timeout (milliseconds) Enter a connection timeout in milliseconds. Optional. Must be a value greater than 0 (zero), and the default is 5000 (5 seconds).
    Read timeout (milliseconds) Enter a read timeout in milliseconds. Optional
    Access scope

    Enter text to provide a scope for the resources.

    Access scope can help map alerts to resources when resources in different scopes share the same parameters, such as matchTokens.

    		 Optional.
    Tip: You can define access scope for locations, project names, namespaces, etc.
    Generate debug support file
    Set the optional Generate debug support file parameter to 'True' in order to capture the output of the next scheduled job run as a file. This file will be stored with an observer's log files and can be used to debug observer issues, for example at the request of your designated Support team, or while using a test environment. For one-off jobs (that is, Load jobs), this parameter reverts to 'False' after the next completed run. To examine the output produced, you can load the generated debug file using the File Observer. The file is saved to the following locations:
    On-prem
    $ASM_HOME/logs/<obs>-observer/
    On OCP
    /var/log/itsm/<obs>-observer
    		 Optional
    Observer job description Enter additional information to describe the job. Optional
    Job schedule

    Specify when the job should run, and whether it should run at regular intervals.

    By default the job runs immediately, and only once.

    Optionally you can specify a future date and time for the job to run, and then set it to run at regular intervals after that.

    Optional. Transient (one-off) jobs only.

    If you set a job schedule, the run intervals must be at least 90 seconds apart, and if you set them at less than 15 minutes, a warning is displayed, as the frequency can impact system performance.
    SSL requirements: To acquire SSL certificates and build SSL truststores, use the relevant instructions in the following section: Configuring observer job security