Red Hat Insights Remediations improvements

Red Hat Insights is a managed service included with almost every Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) subscription that continuously analyzes platforms and applications to help you maintain your hybrid cloud environment. Red Hat Insights uses predictive analytics and deep domain expertise to reduce the time required to perform complex operational tasks from hours to minutes. This includes identifying security and performance risks, tracking licenses and managing costs.

Insights remediations generates Ansible Playbooks that remediate issues discovered by Red Hat Insights. The remediations service interacts with several other Insights services like inventory, advisor, patch, compliance and vulnerability. We've implemented several improvements to enhance the user experience:

1. A tooltip provides information about why you can or cannot execute a playbook when you hover over the Execute playbook button on the remediations page.
2. A compliance scan (insights-client –compliance) has been added to the playbook when there are compliance issues included in the remediation playbook.
3. A connection status column has been added in the Systems tab when you’re viewing a specific remediation playbook that indicates the status of your system.
4. Remediation playbooks are protected from being created with existing or blank names.

In this article, we cover each of these improvements to help you understand how they can improve your experience with Insights remediations.

Informational tooltip on the Execute Playbook button

A tooltip now appears when you hover over the Execute playbook button on the remediations detail page. This popup displays a remediations readiness check that includes three checks that must pass in order to execute the playbook.

One of the figures below shows an example of only two-thirds of the checks passing, resulting in a disabled Execute playbook button. 

Disabled “Execute playbook” button with only ⅔ of readiness check passing

In this example, you must ensure that the system is connected by navigating to the Systems tab and making the necessary adjustments. The next figure shows an example of all three checks passing, resulting in the Execute playbook button being enabled. 

Enabled “Execute playbook” button with fully passing readiness check

Automatic compliance scan for remediations with compliance issues

The compliance scan (insights-client –compliance) is now automatically added to a remediation playbook containing compliance issues. Previously, the compliance scan had to be done manually after the remediation. The following figure shows the task that gets added to the remediation playbook when there is a compliance issue included in the playbook.This change saves you time by taking care of that extra step for you.

Task that will be added to remediation playbook to generate a compliance report 

Connection status column on systems table

In addition to the new popover for the Execute playbook button, there's a new connection status column in the table of the systems tab on the remediations page. This column displays the connection status for all systems included in the remediation playbook. The possible connection statuses are: connected, disconnected, not configured or unknown. If the connection status is connected, then there is no popover message.

System with a ‘Connected’ connections status

If the connection status is disconnected, then there is a popover when you hover over the word disconnected, providing information depending on the system type (remote host configuration client or Red Hat Satellite). 

Popover message when connection status is ‘disconnected’ and system type is RHC client

The figure below shows the disconnected popover message when the system type is Red Hat Satellite.

Popover message when connection status is ‘disconnected’ and system type is Red Hat Satellite

If the status is not configured, a popover is available with information on how to connect the system or the Red Hat Satellite instance to Red Hat Insights. 

Popover message when connection status is ‘not configured’

Finally, if the connection status is unknown, there is a popover when you hover over the word unknown with more information on whether this is due to a Role Based Access Control (RBAC) or RHC permission issue.

Popover message when connection status is ‘Unknown’

This change helps you understand the connection status for each system. When there is a connectivity issue, it helps you to identify which system needs to be reviewed and what needs to be done to get it working again.

No duplicate or blank remediation playbook names

It is no longer possible for two remediation playbooks within the same organization to use the same name. It's also not possible to create a remediation playbook with a blank name. Before this update, unnamed playbooks were automatically named “unnamed playbook”, which could result in duplicate remediation playbook names.

Now, when you attempt to create or update a remediation playbook using a name that’s already in use, you're prompted to edit the name.

Error message displayed when you attempt to update remediation playbook using a name that already exists within the organization

When you attempt to create a new remediation playbook with a blank name, the next button  remains disabled until you provide a valid playbook name.

Disabled ‘next’ button when user attempts to create a remediation playbook with a blank name

Currently, you're only able to view remediation playbooks that you've created. In the future, you will be able to share a playbook with the entire organization. Requiring unique names is one way to reduce confusion when these upcoming changes occur. 

New features

In this article, we’ve highlighted several Insights remediations improvements that provide an improved user experience. You can learn more about Red Hat Insights in these helpful articles:

• Extend Red Hat Insights client to execute custom automation
• Convert CentOS Linux to RHEL using Red Hat Insights
• Testing frameworks for images built via Insights image builder

Not using Insights remediations yet? Learn more and try it today.