Upgrade Ansible version in AWX

upgrade-ansible-version-awx.md

Upgrade Ansible version in AWX to latest Ansible devel

AWX 17 comes shipped with Ansible version 2.9.2*, but if you want to upgrade the Ansible version it can be some hassle. Here is how to upgrade the Ansible version for AWX :)

Note: the upgrade has to happen in the docker containers!

Login and run bash commands on the web container:

$ docker exec -it awx_web bash

Add new mirrorlist so you can install epel-release:

$ sed -i 's/mirrorlist/#mirrorlist/g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Linux-*
$ sed -i 's|#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org|baseurl=http://vault.centos.org|g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Linux-*

Update, install epel-release, upgrad pip:

$ dnf update -y
$ dnf install epel-release
$ pip install --upgrade pip

Create a new virtual environment for awx and install depend's. (name the virtual environment what you want, in this example its named "ansible":

$ virtualenv /var/lib/awx/venv/ansible 
$ yum install -y gcc
$ yum install -y python-devel

Now we need to install some utils in the newly created virtual environment:

$ /var/lib/awx/venv/ansible/bin/pip install python-memcached psutil

Then install ansible in the new virtual environment:

$ /var/lib/awx/venv/ansible/bin/pip install -U ansible

Note: If you want to install an version of ansible, change ansible with "ansible == 2.9.28"

If you get an error that ansible is allready installed, uninstall it with:

$ /var/lib/awx/venv/ansible/bin/pip uninstall -U "ansible == version"

Exit the container:

$ exit

Now do the same steps on the task container:

$ docker exec -it awx_task bash

etc....

Make awx use our new virtual environment: Change the marked parts to fit your deployment

$ curl  -u 'admin:password' -X PATCH -H 'Content-Type: application/json' http://awx-ip/api/v2/organizations/org-name/ -d '

or in the web gui: url: http://awx-ip/api/v2/organizations/ Find the line: "custom_virtualenv":"" and add the new directory. Example: "custom_virtualenv":"/var/lib/awx/venv/ansible/"

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Resources, links and thanks:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52371437/how-to-configure-awx-for-using-an-unreleased-version-of-ansible

https://www.ansible.com/blog/getting-started-using-the-virtual-environment

https://namespaceit.com/blog/failed-to-download-metadata-for-repo-appstream-cannot-prepare-internal-mirrorlist-no-urls-in-mirrorlist

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/installation_guide/intro_installation.html#installing-ansible-in-a-virtual-environment-with-pip

https://www.techbeatly.com/how-to-set-up-and-use-python-virtual-environments-for-ansible/