aap_preflight

One common issue with installing Ansible Automation Platform is running into errors 15 minutes into the installation. Only to have to make corrections, re-run setup.sh and wait another 15 minutes to find out if your changes corrected the problem or not.

The pre-install checks playbook does not cover every possible scenario. But it does validate that all nodes in the inventory have appropriate connectivity and that any credentials specified for a non-AAP installer managed database are good.

See list of pre-install checks below.

See list of post-install checks below.

Playbook(s):

Playbook Name	Description
`preinstall_checks.yml`	Uses the AAP install inventory to perform pre-installation validation tasks.
`postinstall_tasks.yml`	Uses the AAP install inventory to perform post-installation tasks.

Other Recommendations:

If you are deploying a large AAP cluster with instance groups and hop nodes in your inventory, I suggest you run ./setup.sh -- --tag generate_dot_file before you perform the install. This will generate a file called mesh-topology.dot. You can then copy the contents of the dot file into GraphViz Online to view the topology and make sure it looks correct.

Usage:

The inventory used must be your AAP install inventory file

ansible-playbook preinstall_checks.yml -i inventory

Pre-install checks performed:

Installs nmap-ncat (for port connectivity tests)
Disables appstream repo on all hosts in inventory
Enables baseos repo on all hosts in inventory
Check if Chef-Client is installed
Check if Chef-Client service is running
Stops and Disables chef-client on all hosts in inventory if installed and running
AAP install database validation
- Check all pg_* vars for controller database
- Check all automationhub_pg_* vars for automation hub
- Check all automationedacontroller_pg_* vars for eda controller
Non-AAP install managed database tests
- Controller:
  - Port connectivity test using nc
  - Database credential test (attempt to login)
- Automation Hub:
  - Port connectivity test using nc
  - Database credential test (attempt to login)
  - Install hstore extension
- EDA Controller:
  - Port connectivity test using nc
  - Database credential test (attempt to login)
Check if Automation Hub is clustered
- Check all all nodes have /var/lib/pulp mounted
- Verify automationhub_main_url is set

Post-install checks performed:

Re-enables repositories on all hosts in inventory
Re-enables chef-client if installed
- I really don't like the idea of managing AAP with Chef
Checks that the redis group is created on controllers and execution nodes
Checks that the awx user is a member of redis, nginx, and receptor groups on Controllers.
Checks that the awx user is a member of the receptor group on execution nodes
Check Hop node receptor port connectivity to Controller.
- Checks if receptor is installed.
- Checks if receptor service is running.
- If receptor is installed and running then this block should successfully report a connection, provided ACLs and firewall ports are set correctly.
- Returns "no route to host" if port is not open but that could include situations where firewalld port on the controller node isn't enabled or if Receptor isn't already installed.
Check Execution node receptor port connectivity to Controller if not behind a hop node.
- Checks if receptor is installed.
- Checks if receptor service is running.
- If receptor is installed and running then this block should successfully report a connection, provided ACLs and firewall ports are set correctly.
- Returns "no route to host" if port is not open but that could include situations where firewalld port on the controller node isn't enabled or if Receptor isn't already installed.