1. User's Guide
  2. About Oracle Linux Automation Manager

1 About Oracle Linux Automation Manager

Oracle Linux Automation Manager provides features that allow your organization to effectively manage infrastructure configuration through a browser user interface. Using Oracle Linux Automation Manager you can:

  • Create and configure permissions for organizations, users, and teams that use Oracle Linux Automation Manager. You must have at least one organization before you can create a project.

  • Create a project in Oracle Linux Automation Manager that imports Oracle Linux Automation Engine playbooks from various sources, such as the local machine which runs Oracle Linux Automation Manager or from a remote git repository.

  • Create an inventory which specifies the hosts where playbook tasks run. You can do this manually or import an Oracle Linux Automation Engine inventory file.

  • Create credentials which contains SSH authentication details for the hosts where the playbook tasks will run and any required credentials for Oracle Linux Automation Engine playbooks in remote repositories specified in projects.

  • Create job templates that specify the projects and playbooks to run.

  • Manually launch or schedule the launch of job templates and review the results.

The following example gives an overview of the steps a system administrator might follow to set up users, a team, and an organization to manage the running of playbooks on an inventory of target machines:

Note:

The below is an overview only. The individual chapters in this book discuss the creation of each resource in more detail.

  1. Log in to Oracle Linux Automation Manager with the administrator user account created during the installation process.

    See Oracle Linux Automation Manager 2.1: Installation Guide for more details on the installation process.

  2. Create an organization called, for example, Organization_Europe_Production.

  3. Create users of Normal User type, for example:

    • NormalUser_Senior.

    • NormalUser_1 and NormalUser_2.

  4. Create a team, called for example, Team_Europe_Production.

  5. Add all the users created in the previous steps to Team_Europe_Production.

  6. Navigate back to Organization_Europe_Production, the organization created in an earlier step.

  7. Add team Team_Europe_Production to Organization_Europe_Production with an Execute role.

    Each team member of Team_Europe_Production is added to Organization_Europe_Production with an Execute role.

  8. In addition to the Execute role that user NormalUser_Senior receives in the previous step, you might want NormalUser_Senior to also have administrative privileges within the Organization_Europe_Production resource. If this is the case, add user NormalUser_Senior to the organization again, this time as an individual user, and specify the Admin role.

    Upon completion of this step, the user NormalUser_Senior is displayed with both Admin and Execute roles in their Roles list.

  9. Create a project with playbooks. For example, you might create a project called Project_Europe_Production with playbooks Playbook_1, Playbook_2, and Playbook_3.

    A project must belong to an organization, so assign the project to Organization_Europe_Production.

  10. Create an Inventory. For example, Inventory_Europe_Production_Servers.

  11. Create hosts, for example, Target_Host_1, Target_Host_2, and Target_Host_3.

    Each host must belong to an inventory, so add each host to Inventory_Europe_Production_Servers created in the previous step.

  12. In a clustered installation, you might create an instance group of nodes, called for example, Instance_Group_Production_Nodes, to run playbooks and jobs on certain inventories.

    See Oracle Linux Automation Manager 2.1: Installation Guide for more details on the installation process and different nodes in the service mesh.

  13. Create a job template called, for example, Job_Template_Production_1. Steps to complete the creation of a job template include the following:

    • In the Project field, specify the project created in a previous step, Project_Europe_Production.

    • Once a Project has been specified, the playbooks associated with the project become available in the Playbook drop-down list. Pick one of its playbooks, for example Playbook_1.

    • In the Instance Group field, select Instance_Group_Production_Nodes, the instance group created in a precious step created in a previous step.

    • Click Save upon completion of all necessary fields.

  14. Launch the playbook or create a schedule for it to run at a future time and date.