Build a Custom Ansible Execution Environment Easily — Video Tutorial

How to build a custom Ansible Execution Environment? Using an Ansible Execution Environment is the latest technology to maintain up-to-date Python dependency of the Ansible collections without interfering with your Linux system. It's the evolution of Python Virtual Environment. This initial configuration sometimes is a roadblock for some Ansible users. I'm Luca Berton and welcome to today's episode of Ansible Pilot. Ansible Execution Environment - Ansible Execution Environment - `ansible-builder` command-line tool - `ansible-runner` command-line tool Let's talk about the Ansible Execution Environment. The Ansible Execution Environment is container images that can be utilized as Ansible control nodes. It's the latest technology developed by Red Hat to simplify the automation process. The main advantage is a standard environment for Development and Production images using container technology creating portable automation runtimes. This technology superseded manual Python Virtual Environments, Ansible module dependencies, and bubblewrap. Experienced users are probably familiar with a lot of challenges managing custom Python Virtual Environments and Ansible module dependencies. Enterprise users of Ansible Automation Platform were familiar with limiting execution jobs under bubblewrap in order to isolate processes The creation is performed by the Ansible Builder tool. Ansible Builder produces a directory that acts as the build context for the container image build, containing the `Containerfile`, along with any other files that need to be added to the image. On the other end, the execution is performed by the Ansible Runner tool. The Ansible Runner enables you to run the Execution Environment as a container in the current machine. It is basically taking care that the content runs as expected. Links - https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/management/ansibleproducts/execution-environments - https://docs.ansible.com/automation-controller/latest/html/userguide/execution_environments.html Playbook Build an Ansible Execution Environment using ansible-builder tool - Execution Environment name: my_ee - System dependency: git - Python dependency boto3 - Collection dependency: community.aws How to Build an Ansible Execution Environment using ansible-builder tool. I'm going to show you how to Build a custom "my_ee" Ansible Execution Environment using the ansible-builder tool specifying some custom System, Python, and collection dependency. For example, let's build a custom Ansible Execution Environment named "my_ee" With System requirements `git`, Python libraries `boto3` and Amazon Collection `community.aws`. code - execution-environment.yml ```yaml --- version: 1 dependencies: galaxy: requirements.yml python: requirements.txt system: bindep.txt additional_build_steps: prepend: | RUN pip3 install --upgrade pip setuptools append: - RUN ls -al / ``` - requirements.yml ```yaml --- collections: - name: community.aws ``` -