Instructions on using an isolated node

The building of the isolated node is done in the make docker-compose-build target. Its image uses a different tag from the tools_awx container.

Given that the images are built, you can run the combined docker compose target. This uses the base docker-compose.yml with modifications found in docker-isolated-override.yml. You will still need to give COMPOSE_TAG with whatever your intended base branch is. For example:

make docker-isolated COMPOSE_TAG=devel

This will automatically exchange the keys in order for the tools_awx_1 container to access the tools_isolated_1 container over ssh. After that, it will bring up all the containers like the normal docker-compose workflow.

Running a job on the Isolated Node

Create a job template that runs normally. Add the id of the instance group named thepentagon to the JT's instance groups. To do this, POST the id (probably id=2) to /api/v2/job_templates/N/instance_groups/. After that, run the job template.

The models are automatically created when running the Makefile target, and they are structured as follows:

+-------+     +-------------+
| tower |<----+ thepentagon |
+-------+     +-------------+
    ^                ^
    |                |
    |                |
+---+---+      +-----+----+
| tower |      | isolated |
+-------+      +----------+

The controller for the group "thepentagon" and all hosts therein is determined by a ForeignKey within the instance group.

Run a playbook

In order to run an isolated job, associate the instance group thepentagon with a job template, inventory, or organization, then run a job that derives from that resource. You should be able to confirm success by inspecting the instance_group of the job.

Advanced Manual Testing

If you want to run a job manually inside of the isolated container with this tooling, you need a private data directory. Normal isolated job runs will clean up their private data directory, but you can temporarily disable this by disabling some parts of the cleanup_isolated.yml playbook.

Example location of a private data directory:

/tmp/awx_29_OM6Mnx/

The following command would run the playbook corresponding to that job.

ansible-runner start /tmp/awx_29_OM6Mnx/ -p some_playbook.yml

Other ansible-runner commands include start, is-alive, and stop.