Author Russ Mckendrick explores Ansible AWX, the open-source version of Ansible Tower. Follow his guide to quickly set up AWX with CentOS 7 using Vagrant.

Ansible AWX

It has been a while as I have been busy writing, I thought I would spend some of my freetime having a very quick play with Ansible AWX↗ , which is the Open Source version of Ansible Tower↗ . I created the following Vagrantfile to launch a CentOS 7↗ server; Ansible AWX 1/3 # # V V e A a n v G g c c e c e d i R r o o n o n : A a n n d n a a a e d N n f f . . . . f w w w n m s T t i i m c c c i x x x a a d o e F . g g e p u u g . . . n n d t I c . . m u s s . v v v s s e L o v v o s t t v m m m i i : f E n m m r o o m . . . b b t _ f . . y = m m . h n p l l r = A i b p i i d o e r e e u r P g o r = 2 z z e s t o . . b u I u x o e e f t w v p b y b _ r v 4 i n o i l e y V e = i 0 [ [ n a r s a c E ( d 4 " " e m k i y o : R V " e 8 m m e o b m S A c r o o " : n o e I G e d d a = f o O R n : i i w o : k = N A t v f f x " r a N o i y y " a w n = t = T s r v v w a s r F / t m m d x r i " u " I 7 u " " o . d b p e 2 L " a , , l e l l " E l d e a _ b : : a c _ y A o i i w a p d b P x d d x l o o o I , , | " r o _ d t | k V o " " , a . E - - n y R - - g s m S n i u i l I a o e b " O t a s l N d p t e ) n i : | s c d h " " o o , 8 s 0 | t " " c r o , o e n n s " h f o ] o i l s g v t | e : r 1 " " 8 , 0 8 " 0 o " n " ] This launches the following playbook.yml which prepares the CentOS 7 box by installing Docker and the other prerequisites need to build and launch AWX; ...

September 24, 2017 · 9 min · Russ Mckendrick
Author Russ Mckendrick's 'Mastering Docker Second Edition' is now available. Get an updated guide to Docker from Packt and other bookstores.

Mastering Docker Second Edition

It has been a while since I have posted, since Docker Bootcamp was published I have been hard at work on the second edition of Mastering Docker for Packt↗ which is now available from https://www.packtpub.com/en-us/product/mastering-docker-9781789618686↗ as well as Amazon and all other book stores.

September 19, 2017 · 1 min · Russ Mckendrick
Author Russ Mckendrick's third book, 'Docker Bootcamp,' is coming soon. Pre-order now for a comprehensive guide to Docker.

Docker Bootcamp

I haven’t posted here in a while as I have been busy writting my third book. I am pleased to say that Docker Bootcamp will be published in the next few weeks by Packt↗ . It is available for pre-order now↗ .

April 19, 2017 · 1 min · Russ Mckendrick
Deploy Minio in Docker Swarm with Docker 1.13 for distributed object storage. Easy setup and management.

Playing with Docker 1.13 & Minio

I had some time today, so I thought I would combine two posts I have been planning on writing for a week or two, looking at Docker 1.13 and also Minio. It is important to note before you read further that this post does not cover using Mino as a storage backend for containers. It is about launching a distributed Minio installation in a Docker Swarm cluster and consuming the storage using the Minio command line client and web interface. ...

January 21, 2017 · 29 min · Russ Mckendrick
Explore UI options for Docker management including Portainer, Docker Datacenter, Shipyard, Rancher, Kubernetes Dashboard, RedHat OpenShift, DC/OS, and AWS ECS.

UIs for Docker, a follow-up post

Following on from the post I wrote on Portainer; Portainer, a UI for Docker↗ There was a lot of great feedback, like the following from Aleksandr Blekh, Ph.D.↗ ; Great post, thank you! Could you briefly clarify why/when one would want to prefer Portainer to Rancher and vice versa. It would be great, if you could also touch on benefits of using Docker UIs versus Kubernetes-based PaaS, specifically OpenShift (which has UI for Docker container management). ...

January 15, 2017 · 7 min · Russ Mckendrick
Explore Russ Mckendrick's essential day-to-day tools, including Visual Studio Code, Docker, Ansible, and Digital Ocean, among others.

Day to Day Tools

Its been quite a while since I wrote up what I am using on day to day, in fact I seem to have skipped all of 2016. Desktop Apps Not too much change on the Desktop … Visual Studio Code↗ ; I started off the year Atom, but this gives me the same functionality and seems quicker Pastebot↗ ; Working in tech means I copy and paste alot, this lets me sync and (not all from StackOverflow↗ ) Bear↗ ; For note taking … still using SublimeText↗ (Still the best text editor around), 1Password↗ , Photoshop↗ , Omnigraffle↗ , Tweetbot↗ & MS Office↗ . ...

January 5, 2017 · 2 min · Russ Mckendrick
Explore Elastic Beats for data shipping in DevOps. Learn to set up and configure Metricbeat on Docker Swarm for system and Docker metrics analysis.

Trying out Elastic Beats

I thought it was about time, as I had some to spare today, to have a play with one of the new feature of the Elastic family of products I have yet to try. Beats is the platform for single-purpose data shippers. They install as lightweight agents and send data from hundreds or thousands of machines to Logstash or Elasticsearch. I have used an ELK stack before↗ but never for metrics, it always been for more traditional log files and tools such as Zabbix↗ have been my goto for metrics. ...

January 2, 2017 · 19 min · Russ Mckendrick
Learn to set up a local Kubernetes lab using Minikube for testing or development. Install, configure, and enable additional functionalities.

Launching a local Kubernetes lab using Minikube

I have more and more people at work asking me about Docker and Kubernetes↗ , so I thought it would be good to write down some instructions on bringing up a small test lab on my laptop. I had initially assumed that I would have to spend some time configuring a Vagrant box for this, but then I spotted the Minikube project↗ . Minikube is a tool that makes it easy to run Kubernetes locally. Minikube runs a single-node Kubernetes cluster inside a VM on your laptop for users looking to try out Kubernetes or develop with it day-to-day. ...

January 1, 2017 · 6 min · Russ Mckendrick