Getting AWX up and running
Before we get stuck into installing AWX, it is worth briefly exploring what AWX is, and what it isn't. AWX is a tool to be employed alongside Ansible. It does not duplicate or replicate, in any way, the features of Ansible. Indeed, when Ansible playbooks are run from AWX, the ansible-playbook executable is being called behind the scenes. AWX should be considered a complementary tool that adds the following benefits, on which many enterprises depend:
- Rich role-based access control (RBAC)
- Integration with centralized login services (for example, LDAP or AD)
- Secure credential management
- Auditability
- Accountability
- Lower barrier to entry for new operators
- Improved management of playbook version control
- Fully featured API
Most of the AWX code runs in a set of Linux containers. However, the standard installation method has changed since the last edition of the book, and...
