AWX in Action

Credentials: How AWX Connects to Hosts

To run jobs on the managed nodes, you need to provide credentials to AWX. These authenticate the connections AWX opens (SSH or any other method Ansible supports). There are different types you can add: some let you reach managed nodes, others connect to network devices, source control systems, and more.

• Machine: SSH credentials to connect to the managed nodes.
• Network: Credentials to connect to network devices like routers and switches.
• Source Control: Credentials to connect to source control systems like Git.
• Cloud-related credentials like Amazon Web Services, Google Compute Engine, AWS Secrets Manager lookup, and more.
• Vault: Credentials to decrypt vaulted files.
• Container Registry: Credentials to pull images from container registries like Dockerhub, Quay.io, or other private registries.
• Insights: Credentials to connect to Red Hat Insights.
• Source control access tokens like GitHub Personal Access Token or GitLab Personal Access Token.

As you can see, not all of these types are used to reach managed nodes. They cover different scenarios, and you can add as many as you need and bind them to the appropriate templates or inventories.

Since we have managed nodes that AWX will need to connect to, we're going to add SSH credentials:

• Click on Credentials in the left-side menu and then click on the Add button.
• Select the Machine type and provide a name for the credentials.
• We'll create a single credential for both the Nebula and Solara hosts. Let's call it MyCredentials.
• Paste the private key generated earlier in the SSH Private Key field. You can also add a passphrase if the key is encrypted.