RHEL

Ansible playbooks for Red Hat Enterprise Linux day-2 operations — subscription management, patching, user provisioning, Insights, and demo environment setup. Designed to run from Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) Controller with variables supplied via surveys or credential types.

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Playbooks

Subscription Management

subregister.yml

Registers a RHEL host with Red Hat Subscription Manager (RHSM) using username/password and attaches a specific pool. Sets system purpose (role, usage, SLA).

Variables:

username: ''        # RHSM username
password: ''        # RHSM password
pool_id: ''         # Subscription pool ID
systemrole: "Red Hat Enterprise Server"
usage: "Dev/Test"
sla: "Self-Support"

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subregistersat.yml

Registers a RHEL host to a Red Hat Satellite server using an organization ID and activation key.

Variables:

server_hostname: ''   # Satellite FQDN
org: ''               # Organization ID
activationkey: ''     # Activation key name
pool_id: ''
systemrole: "Red Hat Enterprise Server"
usage: "Dev/Test"
sla: "Self-Support"

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subunregister.yml

Unregisters a host from RHSM (state: absent). Use before decommissioning or rebuilding.

No variables required.

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Repository Management

setRHEL7repos.yml

Disables all repositories and enables the standard RHEL 7 repositories:

• rhel-7-server-rpms
• rhel-7-server-extras-rpms

Only runs when ansible_distribution == "RedHat" and major version is 7.

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setsatRHEL7repos.yml

Disables all repositories and enables the Satellite 6.7 repository set for RHEL 7:

• rhel-7-server-rpms
• rhel-7-server-satellite-6.7-rpms
• rhel-server-rhscl-7-rpms
• rhel-7-server-satellite-maintenance-6-rpms
• rhel-7-server-ansible-2.9-rpms

Runs yum clean metadata after enabling. Only runs on RHEL 7.

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Patching & Package Management

yumupdate.yml

Updates all installed packages to the latest available version.

# No variables required
- yum:
    name: '*'
    state: latest

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yuminstall.yml

Installs a single package by name using yum. Sends a Slack notification on success if slack_token is defined.

Variables:

package: ''          # Name of the package to install
slack_token: ''      # Optional: Slack bot token for install notification

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dnfinstall.yml

Installs a package using dnf (RHEL 8+). Runs serially (serial: 1) across hosts.

Variables:

package: ''          # Name of the package to install

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yumremove.yml

Removes a package from all target hosts using yum. Runs serially (serial: 1) so removals happen one host at a time, reducing the risk of taking down a service across the entire inventory simultaneously.

Tasks:

1. Removing {{ package }} — runs yum with state: absent to uninstall the named package

Variables:

package: ''          # Name of the package to remove

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RollbackYum.yml

Rolls back the last yum transaction using yum history rollback last-1. Useful for undoing a bad update. Prints the rollback output.

No variables required.

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rollbackupdateinsights.yml

Rolls back the last yum transaction and runs insights-client to sync the new state with Red Hat Insights.

No variables required.

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Red Hat Insights

reginsights.yml

Registers a host with Red Hat Insights by running insights-client --register.

No variables required.

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unreginsights.yml

Unregisters a host from Red Hat Insights by running insights-client --unregister.

No variables required.

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insightrole.yml

Applies the RedHatInsights.insights-client Ansible role. Runs only on RedHat family OS, version 6 or higher.

Requires the RedHatInsights.insights-client role to be installed.

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Users & SSH

createuser.yml

Creates an Ansible service account on target hosts with optional sudo access.

Variables:

svcansible_username: ''       # Service account name
svcansible_home: ''           # Home directory base path
svcansible_public_key: ''     # SSH public key string
svcansible_sudoer: 'false'    # Set to 'true' to add NOPASSWD sudo rule

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authkeys.yml

Deploys an SSH public key from a local file (/home/sshkey/redpub) to the authorized_keys of a specified user.

Variables:

key_user: ''     # The user account to add the key to

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Services

starthttpd.yml

Starts the httpd service on all target hosts. Uses state: started so it is idempotent.

No variables required.

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stophttpd.yml

Stops the httpd service on all target hosts. Used in demos to trigger a Dynatrace problem alert.

No variables required.

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Configuration Drift / File Management

checkfilediffnoapply.yml

Clones a source file repository, compares a file to its live version in /etc/ using check_mode: yes and diff: yes, and generates an HTML diff report on a container host. Does not apply changes.

Variables:

sourcefilerepo: ''     # Git repo URL containing source config files
file2comp: ''          # Filename to compare (e.g. resolv.conf)
home_dir: ''           # Directory on container host for report output
container_host: ''     # Hostname of the container/report host

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checkfilediffapply.yml

Same as above but applies the change if the file differs. Does not generate an HTML report.

Variables:

sourcefilerepo: ''     # Git repo URL containing source config files
file2comp: ''          # Filename to compare and apply

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Reporting

CreateHTMLinventory.yml

Generates an HTML OS inventory report using a Jinja2 template (report-osversion.j2) and saves it to a web-accessible directory on a report host. Sends a Slack notification with the report URL when complete.

Variables:

www_dir: ''          # Target directory for the HTML report on the report host
slack_token: ''      # Slack bot token

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Connectivity

checkpubip.yml

Queries an external URL (http://www.canzahip.com) from each host to determine its current public IP address. Runs serially (serial: 1) across the inventory. Sends a Slack notification with the result if slack_token is defined.

Variables:

slack_token: ''      # Optional: Slack bot token for IP notification

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checkhostsup.yml

Tests SSH reachability across the inventory. Reachable hosts are dynamically added to the running_hosts group (used by downstream plays). Hosts that fail send a Slack alert with task failure details.

Variables:

slack_token: ''      # Slack bot token
channel: ''          # Slack channel (e.g. #ansible-alerts)
slackuser: ''        # Display name for the Slack message

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Notifications

slackafailedtaskalert.yml

Sends a formatted Slack alert containing the hostname, failed task name, action, and full error JSON. Designed to be called from an on_error notification template or a rescue block.

Variables:

slack_token: ''      # Slack bot token
message: ''          # Custom message text
channel: ''          # Slack channel
slackuser: ''        # Display name for the Slack message

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Demo Environment

readydemomachine.yml

Full baseline provisioning playbook for demo RHEL machines. Performs the complete setup sequence:

1. Waits for SSH connectivity and groups live hosts as running_hosts
2. Subscribes to RHSM (supports both RHEL-only and RHEL+Ansible pool combos)
3. Configures correct repositories for RHEL 7 or RHEL 8
4. Installs and starts Cockpit on RHEL 8 AWS instances (creates cockpitadmin user)
5. Deploys SSH banner, MOTD, and /etc/issue from local files
6. Installs baseline packages: insights-client, net-tools, wget, mlocate, nc, telnet
7. Updates all packages to latest
8. Registers with Red Hat Insights
9. Records timestamps at key stages via set_stats for workflow visibility

Variables:

username: ''        # RHSM username
password: ''        # RHSM password
pool_id: ''         # Subscription pool ID
ansiblenode: ''     # 'true' to attach Ansible pool alongside RHEL pool
slack_token: ''     # Slack bot token (for SSH wait failure alerts)
channel: ''         # Slack channel
slackuser: ''       # Slack display name
systemrole: "Red Hat Enterprise Server"
usage: "Dev/Test"
sla: "Self-Support"

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cleanupdemomachines.yml

Resets a demo machine by unregistering from Insights and removing the RHSM subscription. Run this before re-provisioning a demo host.

No variables required.

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testpause.yml

Development/debug playbook. Gathers service facts, pauses for 20 minutes, then prints the state of nginx.service. Used to inspect service state mid-workflow or simulate a delay during demos.

No variables required.

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Collections Required

# collections/requirements.yml
collections:
  - name: community.general
  - name: ansible.posix
  - name: redhat.insights

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AAP Controller Setup

All sensitive values (RHSM credentials, Slack tokens, Satellite activation keys) should be stored in AAP Controller as custom credential types or passed via job template surveys — never hardcoded in playbooks.

Example custom credential type for RHSM:

Input Configuration:

fields:
  - id: username
    type: string
    label: RHSM Username
  - id: password
    type: string
    label: RHSM Password
    secret: true
  - id: pool_id
    type: string
    label: Pool ID

Injector Configuration:

extra_vars:
  username: '{{ username }}'
  password: '{{ password }}'
  pool_id: '{{ pool_id }}'