In this post, we will show you how to install Ansible AWX on Kubernetes (k8s) cluster step by step.
Ansible AWX is a powerful open-source tool for managing and automating IT infrastructure. AWX provides a graphical user interface for Ansible, allowing you to easily create, schedule, and run Ansible playbooks.
Kubernetes, on the other hand, is a popular container orchestration platform that is widely used for deploying and managing containerized applications.
##### Prerequisites
- Kubernetes cluster
- Kubectl
- A regular user with sudo rights and cluster admin rights
- Internet connectivity
### Step :1 Install helm
In case you, helmis installed on your system then run beneath commands to install,
The easiest way to install AWX on Kubernetes is by using the AWX Helm chart. So, to install AWX via chart, first add its repository using following helm command.
This will download the AWX chart and install it on your Kubernetes cluster in awx namespace.The installation process may take a few minutes, so be patient.
### Step 3: Verify AWX operator installation
After the successful installation, you can verify AWX operator status by running below command
```
$ sudo kubectl get pods -n awx
```
You should see something like this:
![awx-operator-pod-status-kubectl][3]
### Step:4 Create PV, PVC and deploy AWX yaml file
AWX requires persistent volume for postgres pod. So, let’s first create a storage class for local volume
Note: In this post, I am using local file system as persistent volume.
Next create persistent volume(pv) using following pv.yaml file,
```
$ vi pv.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
name: postgres-pv
namespace: awx
spec:
capacity:
storage: 10Gi
volumeMode: Filesystem
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Delete
storageClassName: local-storage
local:
path: /mnt/storage
nodeAffinity:
required:
nodeSelectorTerms:
- matchExpressions:
- key: kubernetes.io/hostname
operator: In
values:
- k8s-worker
```
Save & exit the file.
![Postgres-pv-awx-kubernetes][4]
Important note : Make sure folder “/mnt/storage” exists on worker node, if it does not exist then create it using mkdir command on worker node. In our case worker node is “k8s-worker”
Execute the beneath command to create postgres-pv in awx namespace.
```
$ kubectl create -f pv.yaml
```
Once pv is created successfully then create persistentvolumecliam using pvc.yaml file,
```
$ vi pvc.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
name: postgres-13-ansible-awx-postgres-13-0
namespace: awx
spec:
storageClassName: local-storage
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
resources:
requests:
storage: 10Gi
```
![posgres-pvc-awx-kubernetes][5]
To create pvc, run following kubectl command
```
$ kubectl create -f pvc.yaml
```
Verify the status of pv and pvc using beneath command
```
$ kubectl get pv,pvc -n awx
```
Now, we are all set to deploy AWX instance. Create an ansible-awx.yaml file with following content
```
$ vi ansible-awx.yaml
---
apiVersion: awx.ansible.com/v1beta1
kind: AWX
metadata:
name: ansible-awx
namespace: awx
spec:
service_type: nodeport
postgres_storage_class: local-storage
```
![Ansible-awx-yaml-file][6]
save and close the file.
Execute following kubectl command to deploy awx instance,
```
$ kubectl create -f ansible-awx.yaml
```
Wait for couple of minutes and then check pods status in awx namespace.
```
$ kubectl get pods -n awx
```
![Ansible-AWX-Pods-Status-Kubernetes][7]
### Step 5: Access AWX Web Interface
To access the AWX web interface, you need to create a service that exposes the awx-web deployment:
This command will create a NodePort service that maps the AWX web container’s port to a port on the Kubernetes node. You can find the port number by running:
In this example, the web service is available on port 32254.
![Expose-Ansible-AWX-Web-NodePort-Kubernetes][8]
By default, the admin user is admin for web interface and the password is available in the <resourcename>-admin-password secret. To retrieve the admin password, run
```
$ kubectl get secrets -n awx | grep -i admin-password
You can now access the AWX web interface by opening a web browser and navigating to `http://<node-ip>:<node-port>/`. In the example above, the URL would be
http://192.168.1.223:3225
![AWX-Login-URL-Kubernetes][9]
Click on Log In after entering the credentials.
![Ansible-AWX-Web-Dashboard][10]
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Ansible AWX on Kubernetes. You can now use AWX to automate your IT infrastructure and make your life as a sysadmin easier.
