Chapter 2. System requirements Use this information when planning your Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform installations and designing automation mesh topologies that fit your use case. Prerequisites You can obtain root access either through the sudo command, or through privilege escalation. For more on privilege escalation, see Understanding privilege escalation . You can de-escalate privileges from root to users such as: AWX, PostgreSQL, Event-Driven Ansible, or Pulp. You have configured an NTP client on all nodes. 2.1. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform system requirements Your system must meet the following minimum system requirements to install and run Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. A resilient deployment requires 10 virtual machines with a minimum of 16 gigabytes (GB) of RAM and 4 virtual CPUs (vCPU). See Tested deployment models for more information on topology options. Table 2.1. Base system Requirement Required Notes Subscription Valid Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform OS Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 or later minor versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (x86_64, aarch64). Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 or later minor versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (x86_64, aarch64). Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform are also supported on OpenShift, see Installing on OpenShift Container Platform for more information. Ansible-core Ansible-core version 2.16 or later Ansible Automation Platform uses the system-wide ansible-core package to install the platform, but uses ansible-core 2.16 for both its control plane and built-in execution environments. Database PostgreSQL 15 Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 requires the external (customer supported) databases to have ICU support. Table 2.2. Virtual machine requirements Component RAM VCPU Storage Platform gateway 16GB 4 20GB minimum Control nodes 16GB 4 80GB minimum with at least 20GB available under /var/lib/awx Execution nodes 16GB 4 40GB minimum Hop nodes 16GB 4 40GB minimum Automation hub 16GB 4 40GB minimum allocated to /var/lib/pulp Database 16GB 4 100GB minimum allocated to /var/lib/pgsql Event-Driven Ansible controller 16GB 4 40GB minimum Note These are minimum requirements and can be increased for larger workloads in increments of 2x (for example 16GB becomes 32GB and 4 vCPU becomes 8vCPU). See the horizontal scaling guide for more information. Repository requirements Enable the following repositories only when installing Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform: RHEL BaseOS RHEL AppStream Note If you enable repositories besides those mentioned above, the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform installation could fail unexpectedly. The following are necessary for you to work with project updates and collections: Ensure that the Network ports and protocols listed in Table 6.3. Automation Hub are available for successful connection and download of collections from automation hub or Ansible Galaxy server. Additional notes for Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform requirements If performing a bundled Ansible Automation Platform installation, the installation setup.sh script attempts to install ansible-core (and its dependencies) from the bundle for you. If you have installed Ansible-core manually, the Ansible Automation Platform installation setup.sh script detects that Ansible has been installed and does not attempt to reinstall it. Note You must use Ansible-core, which is installed via dnf. Ansible-core version 2.16 is required for versions 2.5 and later. 2.2. Platform gateway system requirements The platform gateway is the service that handles authentication and authorization for Ansible Automation Platform. It provides a single entry into the platform and serves the platform's user interface. You are required to set umask=0022 . 2.3. Automation controller system requirements Automation controller is a distributed system, where different software components can be co-located or deployed across multiple compute nodes. In the installer, four node types are provided as abstractions to help you design the topology appropriate for your use case: control, hybrid, execution, and hop nodes. Use the following recommendations for node sizing: Execution nodes Execution nodes run automation. Increase memory and CPU to increase capacity for running more forks. Note The RAM and CPU resources stated are minimum recommendations to handle the job load for a node to run an average number of jobs simultaneously. Recommended RAM and CPU node sizes are not supplied. The required RAM or CPU depends directly on the number of jobs you are running in that environment. For capacity based on forks in your configuration, see Automation controller capacity determination and job impact . For further information about required RAM and CPU levels, see Performance tuning for automation controller . Control nodes Control nodes process events and run cluster jobs including project updates and cleanup jobs. Increasing CPU and memory can help with job event processing. 40GB minimum with at least 20GB available under /var/lib/awx Storage volume must be rated for a minimum baseline of 1500 IOPS Projects are stored on control and hybrid nodes, and for the duration of jobs, are also stored on execution nodes. If the cluster has many large projects, consider doubling the GB in /var/lib/awx/projects, to avoid disk space errors. Hop nodes Hop nodes serve to route traffic from one part of the automation mesh to another (for example, a hop node could be a bastion host into another network). RAM can affect throughput, CPU activity is low. Network bandwidth and latency are generally a more important factor than either RAM or CPU. Actual RAM requirements vary based on how many hosts automation controller manages simultaneously (which is controlled by the forks parameter in the job template or the system ansible.cfg file). To avoid possible resource conflicts, Ansible recommends 1 GB of memory per 10 forks and 2 GB reservation for automation controller. See Automation controller capacity determination and job impact . If forks is set to 400, 42 GB of memory is recommended. Automation controller hosts check if umask is set to 0022. If not, the setup fails. Set umask=0022 to avoid this error. A larger number of hosts can be addressed, but if the fork number is less than the total host count, more passes across the hosts are required. You can avoid these RAM limitations by using any of the following approaches: Use rolling updates. Use the provisioning callback system built into automation controller, where each system requesting configuration enters a queue and is processed as quickly as possible. In cases where automation controller is producing or deploying images such as AMIs. Additional resources For more information about obtaining an automation controller subscription, see Attaching your Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform subscription . For questions, contact Ansible support through the Red Hat Customer Portal . 2.4. Automation hub system requirements Automation hub allows you to discover and use new certified automation content from Red Hat Ansible and Certified Partners. On Ansible automation hub, you can discover and manage Ansible Collections, which are supported automation content developed by Red Hat and its partners for use cases such as cloud automation, network automation, and security automation. Note Private automation hub If you install private automation hub from an internal address, and have a certificate which only encompasses the external address, this can result in an installation which cannot be used as container registry without certificate issues. To avoid this, use the automationhub_main_url inventory variable with a value such as https://pah.example.com linking to the private automation hub node in the installation inventory file. This adds the external address to /etc/pulp/settings.py . This implies that you only want to use the external address. For information about inventory file variables, see Inventory file variables . 2.4.1. High availability automation hub requirements Before deploying a high availability (HA) automation hub, ensure that you have a shared storage file system installed in your environment and that you have configured your network storage system, if applicable. 2.4.1.1. Required shared storage Shared storage is required when installing more than one Automation hub with a file storage backend. The supported shared storage type for RPM-based installations is Network File System (NFS). Before you run the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform installer, verify that you installed the /var/lib/pulp directory across your cluster as part of the shared storage file system installation. The Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform installer returns an error if /var/lib/pulp is not detected in one of your nodes, causing your high availability automation hub setup to fail. If you receive an error stating /var/lib/pulp is not detected in one of your nodes, ensure /var/lib/pulp is properly mounted in all servers and re-run the installer. 2.4.1.2. Installing firewalld for HA hub deployment If you intend to install a HA automation hub using a network storage on the automation hub nodes itself, you must first install and use firewalld to open the necessary ports as required by your shared storage system before running the Ansible Automation Platform installer. Install and configure firewalld by executing the following commands: Install the firewalld daemon: USD dnf install firewalld Add your network storage under <service> using the following command: USD firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=<service> Note For a list of supported services, use the USD firewall-cmd --get-services command Reload to apply the configuration: USD firewall-cmd --reload 2.5. Event-Driven Ansible controller system requirements The Event-Driven Ansible controller is a single-node system capable of handling a variable number of long-running processes (such as rulebook activations) on-demand, depending on the number of CPU cores. Note If you want to use Event-Driven Ansible 2.5 with a 2.4 automation controller version, see Using Event-Driven Ansible 2.5 with Ansible Automation Platform 2.4 . Use the following minimum requirements to run, by default, a maximum of 12 simultaneous activations: Requirement Required RAM 16 GB CPUs 4 Local disk Hard drive must be 40 GB minimum with at least 20 GB available under /var. Storage volume must be rated for a minimum baseline of 1500 IOPS. If the cluster has many large projects or decision environment images, consider doubling the GB in /var to avoid disk space errors. Important If you are running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and want to set your memory limits, you must have cgroup v2 enabled before you install Event-Driven Ansible. For specific instructions, see the Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) article, Ansible Automation Platform Event-Driven Ansible controller for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 requires cgroupv2 . When you activate an Event-Driven Ansible rulebook under standard conditions, it uses about 250 MB of memory. However, the actual memory consumption can vary significantly based on the complexity of your rules and the volume and size of the events processed. In scenarios where a large number of events are anticipated or the rulebook complexity is high, conduct a preliminary assessment of resource usage in a staging environment. This ensures that your maximum number of activations is based on the capacity of your resources. For an example of setting Event-Driven Ansible controller maximumrunning activations, see Single automation controller, single automation hub, and single Event-Driven Ansible controller node with external (installer managed) database . 2.6. PostgreSQL requirements Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 uses PostgreSQL 15 and requires the external (customer supported) databases to have ICU support. PostgreSQL user passwords are hashed with SCRAM-SHA-256 secure hashing algorithm before storing in the database. To determine if your automation controller instance has access to the database, you can do so with the command, awx-manage check_db command. Note Automation controller data is stored in the database. Database storage increases with the number of hosts managed, number of jobs run, number of facts stored in the fact cache, and number of tasks in any individual job. For example, a playbook runs every hour (24 times a day) across 250 hosts, with 20 tasks, stores over 800000 events in the database every week. If not enough space is reserved in the database, the old job runs and facts must be cleaned on a regular basis. For more information, see Management Jobs in the Configuring automation execution guide. PostgreSQL Configurations Optionally, you can configure the PostgreSQL database as separate nodes that are not managed by the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform installer. When the Ansible Automation Platform installer manages the database server, it configures the server with defaults that are generally recommended for most workloads. For more information about the settings you can use to improve database performance, see PostgreSQL database configuration and maintenance for automation controller in the Configuring automation execution guide. Additional resources For more information about tuning your PostgreSQL server, see the PostgreSQL documentation . 2.6.1. Setting up an external (customer supported) database Important When using an external database with Ansible Automation Platform, you must create and maintain that database. Ensure that you clear your external database when uninstalling Ansible Automation Platform. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 uses PostgreSQL 15 and requires the external (customer supported) databases to have ICU support. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 uses PostgreSQL 15 and requires the external (customer supported) databases to have ICU support. Use the following procedure to configure an external PostgreSQL compliant database for use with an Ansible Automation Platform component, for example automation controller, Event-Driven Ansible, automation hub, and platform gateway. Procedure Connect to a PostgreSQL compliant database server with superuser privileges. # psql -h <db.example.com> -U superuser -p 5432 -d postgres <Password for user superuser>: Where the default value for <hostname> is hostname : -h hostname --host=hostname Specify the hostname of the machine on which the server is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the directory for the UNIX-domain socket. -d dbname --dbname=dbname Specify the name of the database to connect to. This is equal to specifying dbname as the first non-option argument on the command line. The dbname can be a connection string. If so, connection string parameters override any conflicting command line options. -U username --username=username Connect to the database as the user username instead of the default (you must have permission to do so). Create the user, database, and password with the createDB or administrator role assigned to the user. For further information, see Database Roles . Add the database credentials and host details to the installation program's inventory file under the [all:vars] group. Without mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication to the database Use the following inventory file snippet to configure each component's database without mTLS authentication. Uncomment the configuration you need. [all:vars] # Automation controller database variables # awx_install_pg_host=data.example.com # awx_install_pg_port=<port_number> # awx_install_pg_database=<database_name> # awx_install_pg_username=<username> # awx_install_pg_password=<password> # This is not required if you enable mTLS authentication to the database # pg_sslmode=prefer # Set to verify-ca or verify-full to enable mTLS authentication to the database # Event-Driven Ansible database variables # automationedacontroller_install_pg_host=data.example.com # automationedacontroller_install_pg_port=<port_number> # automationedacontroller_install_pg_database=<database_name> # automationedacontroller_install_pg_username=<username> # automationedacontroller_install_pg_password=<password> # This is not required if you enable mTLS authentication to the database # automationedacontroller_pg_sslmode=prefer # Set to verify-full to enable mTLS authentication to the database # Automation hub database variables # automationhub_pg_host=data.example.com # automationhub_pg_port=<port_number> # automationhub_pg_database=<database_name> # automationhub_pg_username=<username> # automationhub_pg_password=<password> # This is not required if you enable mTLS authentication to the database # automationhub_pg_sslmode=prefer # Set to verify-ca or verify-full to enable mTLS authentication to the database # Platform gateway database variables # automationgateway_install_pg_host=data.example.com # automationgateway_install_pg_port=<port_number> # automationgateway_install_pg_database=<database_name> # automationgateway_install_pg_username=<username> # automationgateway_install_pg_password=<password> # This is not required if you enable mTLS authentication to the database # automationgateway_pg_sslmode=prefer # Set to verify-ca or verify-full to enable mTLS authentication to the database With mTLS authentication to the database Use the following inventory file snippet to configure each component's database with mTLS authentication. Uncomment the configuration you need. [all:vars] # Automation controller database variables # awx_install_pg_host=data.example.com # awx_install_pg_port=<port_number> # awx_install_pg_database=<database_name> # awx_install_pg_username=<username> # pg_sslmode=verify-full # This can be either verify-ca or verify-full # pgclient_sslcert=/path/to/cert # Path to the certificate file # pgclient_sslkey=/path/to/key # Path to the key file # Event-Driven Ansible database variables # automationedacontroller_install_pg_host=data.example.com # automationedacontroller_install_pg_port=<port_number> # automationedacontroller_install_pg_database=<database_name> # automationedacontroller_install_pg_username=<username> # automationedacontroller_pg_sslmode=verify-full # EDA does not support verify-ca # automationedacontroller_pgclient_sslcert=/path/to/cert # Path to the certificate file # automationedacontroller_pgclient_sslkey=/path/to/key # Path to the key file # Automation hub database variables # automationhub_pg_host=data.example.com # automationhub_pg_port=<port_number> # automationhub_pg_database=<database_name> # automationhub_pg_username=<username> # automationhub_pg_sslmode=verify-full # This can be either verify-ca or verify-full # automationhub_pgclient_sslcert=/path/to/cert # Path to the certificate file # automationhub_pgclient_sslkey=/path/to/key # Path to the key file # Platform gateway database variables # automationgateway_install_pg_host=data.example.com # automationgateway_install_pg_port=<port_number> # automationgateway_install_pg_database=<database_name> # automationgateway_install_pg_username=<username> # automationgateway_pg_sslmode=verify-full # This can be either verify-ca or verify-full # automationgateway_pgclient_sslcert=/path/to/cert # Path to the certificate file # automationgateway_pgclient_sslkey=/path/to/key # Path to the key file Run the installation program. If you are using a PostgreSQL database, the database is owned by the connecting user and must have a createDB or administrator role assigned to it. Check that you can connect to the created database with the credentials provided in the inventory file. Check the permission of the user. The user should have the createDB or administrator role. Note During this procedure, you must check the External Database coverage. For further information, see https://access.redhat.com/articles/4010491 2.6.2. Enabling the hstore extension for the automation hub PostgreSQL database Added in Ansible Automation Platform 2.5, the database migration script uses hstore fields to store information, therefore the hstore extension must be enabled in the automation hub PostgreSQL database. This process is automatic when using the Ansible Automation Platform installer and a managed PostgreSQL server. If the PostgreSQL database is external, you must enable the hstore extension in the automation hub PostgreSQL database manually before installation. If the hstore extension is not enabled before installation, a failure raises during database migration. Procedure Check if the extension is available on the PostgreSQL server (automation hub database). USD psql -d <automation hub database> -c "SELECT * FROM pg_available_extensions WHERE name='hstore'" Where the default value for <automation hub database> is automationhub . Example output with hstore available : name | default_version | installed_version |comment ------+-----------------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------------- hstore | 1.7 | | data type for storing sets of (key, value) pairs (1 row) Example output with hstore not available : name | default_version | installed_version | comment ------+-----------------+-------------------+--------- (0 rows) On a RHEL based server, the hstore extension is included in the postgresql-contrib RPM package, which is not installed automatically when installing the PostgreSQL server RPM package. To install the RPM package, use the following command: dnf install postgresql-contrib Load the hstore PostgreSQL extension into the automation hub database with the following command: USD psql -d <automation hub database> -c "CREATE EXTENSION hstore;" In the following output, the installed_version field lists the hstore extension used, indicating that hstore is enabled. name | default_version | installed_version | comment -----+-----------------+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------ hstore | 1.7 | 1.7 | data type for storing sets of (key, value) pairs (1 row) 2.6.3. Benchmarking storage performance for the Ansible Automation Platform PostgreSQL database Check whether the minimum Ansible Automation Platform PostgreSQL database requirements are met by using the Flexible I/O Tester (FIO) tool. FIO is a tool used to benchmark read and write IOPS performance of the storage system. Prerequisites You have installed the Flexible I/O Tester ( fio ) storage performance benchmarking tool. To install fio , run the following command as the root user: # yum -y install fio You have adequate disk space to store the fio test data log files. The examples shown in the procedure require at least 60GB disk space in the /tmp directory: numjobs sets the number of jobs run by the command. size=10G sets the file size generated by each job. You have adjusted the value of the size parameter. Adjusting this value reduces the amount of test data. Procedure Run a random write test: USD fio --name=write_iops --directory=/tmp --numjobs=3 --size=10G \ --time_based --runtime=60s --ramp_time=2s --ioengine=libaio --direct=1 \ --verify=0 --bs=4K --iodepth=64 --rw=randwrite \ --group_reporting=1 > /tmp/fio_benchmark_write_iops.log \ 2>> /tmp/fio_write_iops_error.log Run a random read test: USD fio --name=read_iops --directory=/tmp \ --numjobs=3 --size=10G --time_based --runtime=60s --ramp_time=2s \ --ioengine=libaio --direct=1 --verify=0 --bs=4K --iodepth=64 --rw=randread \ --group_reporting=1 > /tmp/fio_benchmark_read_iops.log \ 2>> /tmp/fio_read_iops_error.log Review the results: In the log files written by the benchmark commands, search for the line beginning with iops . This line shows the minimum, maximum, and average values for the test. The following example shows the line in the log file for the random read test: USD cat /tmp/fio_benchmark_read_iops.log read_iops: (g=0): rw=randread, bs=(R) 4096B-4096B, (W) 4096B-4096B, (T) 4096B-4096B, ioengine=libaio, iodepth=64 [...] iops : min=50879, max=61603, avg=56221.33, stdev=679.97, samples=360 [...] Note The above is a baseline to help evaluate the best case performance on your systems. Systems can and will change and performance may vary depending on what else is happening on your systems, storage or network at the time of testing. You must review, monitor, and revisit the log files according to your own business requirements, application workloads, and new demands.

Commands:
dnf install firewalld
firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=<service>
firewall-cmd --reload
psql -h <db.example.com> -U superuser -p 5432 -d postgres <Password for user superuser>:
-h hostname --host=hostname
-d dbname --dbname=dbname
-U username --username=username
Automation controller database variables awx_install_pg_host=data.example.com awx_install_pg_port=<port_number> awx_install_pg_database=<database_name> awx_install_pg_username=<username> awx_install_pg_password=<password> # This is not required if you enable mTLS authentication to the database pg_sslmode=prefer # Set to verify-ca or verify-full to enable mTLS authentication to the database Event-Driven Ansible database variables automationedacontroller_install_pg_host=data.example.com automationedacontroller_install_pg_port=<port_number> automationedacontroller_install_pg_database=<database_name> automationedacontroller_install_pg_username=<username> automationedacontroller_install_pg_password=<password> # This is not required if you enable mTLS authentication to the database automationedacontroller_pg_sslmode=prefer # Set to verify-full to enable mTLS authentication to the database Automation hub database variables automationhub_pg_host=data.example.com automationhub_pg_port=<port_number> automationhub_pg_database=<database_name> automationhub_pg_username=<username> automationhub_pg_password=<password> # This is not required if you enable mTLS authentication to the database automationhub_pg_sslmode=prefer # Set to verify-ca or verify-full to enable mTLS authentication to the database Platform gateway database variables automationgateway_install_pg_host=data.example.com automationgateway_install_pg_port=<port_number> automationgateway_install_pg_database=<database_name> automationgateway_install_pg_username=<username> automationgateway_install_pg_password=<password> # This is not required if you enable mTLS authentication to the database automationgateway_pg_sslmode=prefer # Set to verify-ca or verify-full to enable mTLS authentication to the database
Automation controller database variables awx_install_pg_host=data.example.com awx_install_pg_port=<port_number> awx_install_pg_database=<database_name> awx_install_pg_username=<username> pg_sslmode=verify-full # This can be either verify-ca or verify-full pgclient_sslcert=/path/to/cert # Path to the certificate file pgclient_sslkey=/path/to/key # Path to the key file Event-Driven Ansible database variables automationedacontroller_install_pg_host=data.example.com automationedacontroller_install_pg_port=<port_number> automationedacontroller_install_pg_database=<database_name> automationedacontroller_install_pg_username=<username> automationedacontroller_pg_sslmode=verify-full # EDA does not support verify-ca automationedacontroller_pgclient_sslcert=/path/to/cert # Path to the certificate file automationedacontroller_pgclient_sslkey=/path/to/key # Path to the key file Automation hub database variables automationhub_pg_host=data.example.com automationhub_pg_port=<port_number> automationhub_pg_database=<database_name> automationhub_pg_username=<username> automationhub_pg_sslmode=verify-full # This can be either verify-ca or verify-full automationhub_pgclient_sslcert=/path/to/cert # Path to the certificate file automationhub_pgclient_sslkey=/path/to/key # Path to the key file Platform gateway database variables automationgateway_install_pg_host=data.example.com automationgateway_install_pg_port=<port_number> automationgateway_install_pg_database=<database_name> automationgateway_install_pg_username=<username> automationgateway_pg_sslmode=verify-full # This can be either verify-ca or verify-full automationgateway_pgclient_sslcert=/path/to/cert # Path to the certificate file automationgateway_pgclient_sslkey=/path/to/key # Path to the key file
psql -d <automation hub database> -c "SELECT * FROM pg_available_extensions WHERE name='hstore'"
name | default_version | installed_version |comment ------+-----------------+-------------------+--------------------------------------------------- hstore | 1.7 | | data type for storing sets of (key, value) pairs (1 row)
name | default_version | installed_version | comment ------+-----------------+-------------------+--------- (0 rows)
dnf install postgresql-contrib
psql -d <automation hub database> -c "CREATE EXTENSION hstore;"
name | default_version | installed_version | comment -----+-----------------+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------ hstore | 1.7 | 1.7 | data type for storing sets of (key, value) pairs (1 row)
yum -y install fio
fio --name=write_iops --directory=/tmp --numjobs=3 --size=10G --time_based --runtime=60s --ramp_time=2s --ioengine=libaio --direct=1 --verify=0 --bs=4K --iodepth=64 --rw=randwrite --group_reporting=1 > /tmp/fio_benchmark_write_iops.log 2>> /tmp/fio_write_iops_error.log
fio --name=read_iops --directory=/tmp --numjobs=3 --size=10G --time_based --runtime=60s --ramp_time=2s --ioengine=libaio --direct=1 --verify=0 --bs=4K --iodepth=64 --rw=randread --group_reporting=1 > /tmp/fio_benchmark_read_iops.log 2>> /tmp/fio_read_iops_error.log
cat /tmp/fio_benchmark_read_iops.log read_iops: (g=0): rw=randread, bs=(R) 4096B-4096B, (W) 4096B-4096B, (T) 4096B-4096B, ioengine=libaio, iodepth=64 [...] iops : min=50879, max=61603, avg=56221.33, stdev=679.97, samples=360 [...]