Using RHEL System Roles to manage Linux at scale

Managing a large environment can be challenging, but if you're running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems, then there are a few really good tools that can help you be more efficient.

One such RHEL management tool to consider is RHEL System Roles, a collection of supported Ansible roles and modules providing consistent and abstracted configuration interfaces to manage RHEL at scale. There are a large variety of roles that cover many aspects of RHEL management.

RHEL System Roles are currently distributed as an RPM in RHEL and as a collection on Ansible Automation Hub (available for Ansible subscribers).

Ansible also supports a new format called execution environments, which are packaged as container images. RHEL System Roles doesn't currently have an execution environment container image, but the upstream Linux System Roles project does. During our recent presentation Secure and monitor RHEL: Using the Linux System Roles execution environment with Ansible Automation Controller at AnsibleFest 2021, we covered how you could use this upstream execution environment and Ansible Automation Controller to help secure and monitor RHEL.

The presentation includes a demonstration that utilizes several System Roles to automate implementing these configurations:

• Configuring Network-Bound Disk Encryption (NBDE) for Tang servers and Clevis clients
• Installing Performance Co-Pilot on clients to collect performance metrics, with a central Grafana server to view performance graphs
• Configuring the sshd_config file
• Installing and configuring Session Recording (tlog)

Watch our presentation (registration required) to learn more about System Roles, automating RHEL, and utilizing execution environments with Ansible Automation Controller.

AnsibleFest is a free, Red Hat-sponsored technology conference, a free virtual event that brings the entire global automation community together. Visit the AnsibleFest website for on-demand access to the demos, keynotes, labs, and technical sessions that you may have missed.