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Integrate with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform / AWX

Support level: Community

What is Tower​

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform (RHAAP) (formerly ‘AWX’) is a web-based solution that makes Ansible even more easy to use for IT teams of all kinds. It’s designed to be the hub for all of your automation tasks. Tower allows you to control access to who can access what, even allowing sharing of SSH credentials without someone being able to transfer those credentials. Inventory can be graphically managed or synced with a wide variety of cloud sources. It logs all of your jobs, integrates well with LDAP, and has an amazing browsable REST API. Command line tools are available for easy integration with Jenkins as well. Provisioning callbacks provide great support for autoscaling topologies.

-- https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/tower.html

note

AWX is the open-source version of RHAAP. The term "AWX" will be used interchangeably throughout this document.

Preparation​

The following placeholders are used in this guide:

  • awx.company is the FQDN of the AWX/RHAAP installation.
  • authentik.company is the FQDN of the authentik installation.
note

This documentation lists only the settings that you need to change from their default values. Be aware that any changes other than those explicitly mentioned in this guide could cause issues accessing your application.

authentik configuration​

To support the integration of AWX Tower with authentik, you need to create an application/provider pair in authentik.

Create an application and provider in authentik​

  1. Log in to authentik as an admin, and open the authentik Admin interface.
  2. Navigate to Applications > Applications and click Create with Provider to create an application and provider pair. (Alternatively you can first create a provider separately, then create the application and connect it with the provider.)
  • Application: provide a descriptive name, an optional group for the type of application, the policy engine mode, and optional UI settings. Take note of the slug as it will be required later.
  • Choose a Provider type: select SAML Provider as the provider type.
  • Configure the Provider: provide a name (or accept the auto-provided name), the authorization flow to use for this provider, and the following required configurations.
    • Set the ACS URL to https://awx.company/sso/complete/saml/.
    • Set the Audience to awx.
    • Set the Issuer to https://awx.company/sso/metadata/saml/.
    • Set the Service Provider Binding to Post.
    • Under Advanced protocol settings, select an available signing certificate.
  • Configure Bindings (optional): you can create a binding (policy, group, or user) to manage the listing and access to applications on a user's My applications page.
  1. Click Submit to save the new application and provider.

AWX Configuration​

Navigate to https://awx.company/#/settings/auth to configure SAML. Set the Field SAML SERVICE PROVIDER ENTITY ID to awx.

For the fields SAML SERVICE PROVIDER PUBLIC CERTIFICATE and SAML SERVICE PROVIDER PRIVATE KEY, you can either use custom certificates, or use the self-signed pair generated by authentik.

Provide metadata in the SAML Service Provider Organization Info field:

{
    "en-US": {
        "name": "authentik",
        "url": "https://authentik.company",
        "displayname": "authentik"
    }
}

Provide metadata in the SAML Service Provider Technical Contact and SAML Service Provider Technical Contact fields:

{
    "givenName": "Admin Name",
    "emailAddress": "admin@company"
}

In the SAML Enabled Identity Providers paste the following configuration:

{
    "authentik": {
        "attr_username": "http://schemas.goauthentik.io/2021/02/saml/username",
        "attr_user_permanent_id": "http://schemas.goauthentik.io/2021/02/saml/uid",
        "x509cert": "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",
        "url": "https://authentik.company/application/saml/<slug>/sso/binding/redirect/",
        "entity_id": "https://awx.company/sso/metadata/saml/",
        "attr_email": "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress",
        "attr_first_name": "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/name"
    }
}

x509cert is the certificate configured in authentik. Remove the --BEGIN CERTIFICATE-- and --END CERTIFICATE-- headers, then enter the cert as one non-breaking string.