Creating-and-Running-a-Job-Template.adoc

Exercise 1.3 - Creating and Running a Job Template

A job template is a definition and set of parameters for running an Ansible job.

Job templates are useful to execute the same job many times.

Creating a Job Template

Step 1:

Select TEMPLATES icon

Step 2:

Click on ADD Job Template

Step 3:

Complete the form using the following values and SAVE

NAME	Apache Basic Job Template
DESCRIPTION	Template for the apache-basic-playbook
JOB TYPE	Run
INVENTORY	Ansible Workshop Inventory
PROJECT	Ansible Workshop Project
PLAYBOOK	examples/apache-basic-playbook/site.yml
CREDENTIAL	Ansible Workshop Credential
LIMIT	web
OPTIONS

Figure 11: Job Template Form

Step 4:

Select SAVE

Step 5:

Select ADD SURVEY

Step 6:

Complete the survey form with following values

PROMPT	Please enter a test message for your new website
DESCRIPTION	Website test message prompt
ANSWER VARIABLE NAME	apache_test_message
ANSWER TYPE	Text
MINIMUM/MAXIMUM LENGTH	Use the defaults
DEFAULT ANSWER	Be creative, keep it clean, we’re all professionals here

Figure 12: Survey Form

Step 7:

Select ADD

Step 8:

Select SAVE

Step 9:

Back on the main Job Template page, select SAVE again.

Running a Job Template

Now that you’ve sucessfully created your Job Template, you are ready to launch it. Once you do, you will be redirected to a job screen which is refreshing in realtime showing you the status of the job.

Step 1:

Select JOB TEMPLATES icon

Note	Alternatively, if you haven’t navigated away from the job templates creation page, you can scroll down to see all existing job templates

Step 2:

Click on the rocketship icon for the Apache Basic Job Template

Step 3:

When prompted, enter your desired test message

Figure 13: Survey Prompt

Step 4:

Select LAUNCH

Step 5:

Sit back, watch the magic happen

Once the job is running, on the left, you’ll have details in regards to what playbook it’s running, what the status is, i.e. pending, running, or complete. You’ll also notice the apache_test_message being passed in as an 'extra_variable.'

To the right, you can view standard output; the same way you could if you were running Ansible Core from the command line.

Figure 14: Job Summary

You can also click on the nodes in the standard output under a specific task for additional information. ---

Figure 15: Play and Task Details

Step 6:

Once your job is sucessful, navigate to your new website

http://<IP_of_node-1_or_node-2>;

If all went well, you should see something like this, but with your own custom message of course.

Figure 17: New Website with Personalized Test Message

End Result

At this point in the workshop, you’ve experienced the core functionality of Ansible Tower. But wait…? there’s more! You’ve just begun to explore the possibilities of Ansible Core and Tower. Take a look at the resources page in this guide to explore some more features.

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