Creating Schematics actions

Creating an action by using Console

Create a Schematics action and specify the Ansible playbook that you want to run against your Cloud resources.

1. Log in to IBM Cloud console.

2. Click the Menu icon > Platform Automation > Schematics > Ansible and navigate to Create playbook.

   • Create a playbook.

     1. Enter a playbook Name and a Description for your action. The name can be up to 128 characters long and can include alphanumeric characters, spaces, dashes, and underscores.
     2. Enter the GitHub or GitLab repository URL where your Ansible playbook is stored. The URL can point to the master branch, any other branch, or a subdirectory. If your repository stores multiple playbooks, you must select the playbook that you want to run. A Schematics action can point to one playbook at a time. To run multiple playbooks, you must create a separate action for each playbook.

     If you don't have a playbook, try out one of your sample playbooks.

     3. Optional: enter the Branch (optional) and Folder (optional).
     4. Optional: if you want to use a private GitHub repository, enter your personal access token. The personal access token is used to authenticate private GitHub repository to access your Ansible playbook. For more information about how to create an access token, see creating a personal access token for the CLI.

     For more information, see the allowed and blocked file extensions for cloning from the Git repository. To securely validate and clone the template, you can click the Open reference picker to select your Secrets Manager key reference. For more information, see creating a Secrets Manager instance.

   • Additional information

     1. Optional: enter the Tags that you want to add to your action. Tags help in the quick search operation of your action.
     2. Select the Resource group where you want to create the action.
     3. Select the Location where you want to create the action. The location determines where your action runs and action data are stored. You can choose a geography, such as Dallas, or Frankfurt. If you select a geography, Schematics decides on a location within this geography based on availability. Be sure that you can store your action data in this location as you cannot change the location after the action is created. For more information, see where is the information stored? Make sure that the location of your action is independent from the location of your Cloud resource where you want to run your Ansible playbook.

   • Choose an inventory You can define the host groups on which you want to run your Ansible playbook.

     1. Click Create Inventory.

     2. Enter a name for your inventory.

     3. Choose the Connection type as SSH or WinRM depending on your remote host requirements. The default is SSH.

        Connection type supports both SSH and WinRM for connecting to remote hosts. For SSH ensure that Bastion host access is configured. WinRM is used to connect with Windows remote hosts. Currently, WinRM supports only Windows system with the public IPs and does not support Bastion host access.

     4. Verify your location and select the Resource group where you want to create the inventory.

     5. Click Create host group.

     6. Enter a name for your host group and select the Schematics workspace that provisioned the target hosts that you want to add to your host group.

     7. Optional: Click Add query to add another condition to your query and limit the number of target hosts that are added to your host group. You can choose to identify your hosts by using the resource name or a tag. For more information, see supported resource queries.

     8. Click Add another condition and repeat steps 6-8 to add more host groups.

     9. Optional: Click Define manually tab to define the hosts and group of hosts on which your playbook operates.

     10. Enter the host details by using .ini file format in File option.

     11. From the table list, select the host groups that you want to include in your resource inventory.

     12. Click Create inventory to define an inventory file that defines the hosts and group of hosts upon which your playbook operates.

3. From the resource inventory table, select an existing resource inventory and click the Edit icon.

   • Click Manage Credentials to configure the inventory credentials. For more information, see Managing credentials.
   • Click Manage Variables to configure the inventory variables. For more information, see Managing variables.
   • Click Delete to remove the inventory.

4. Click Create. Your action is created with a Normal state, and you are directed to the Details section.

5. Click Check action to verify the tasks you are trying to run, and your resources are linked to your playbook. You can monitor the Action history section to view the results in the logs. This check verifies the tasks that you are trying to run, and your resources are properly linked to your playbook.

   You cannot delete or stop a running job of your Schematics action. To change your action, wait for the job to complete, and change your settings, and then click Check action or Run action again.

6. Click Run action to run the action. You can monitor the progress of an action by reviewing the logs on the Jobs page. Every 30 seconds the job logs are automatically refreshed.

Creating an action by using CLI

1. From your local CLI interface, set up Schematics plug-in.
2. Create an action by using the ibmcloud schematics action create command.
3. Create an inventory by using the ibmcloud schematics inventory create command.
4. Check the logs to verify that the creation was successful.

Creating an action by using API

1. Retrieve your IAM access token and authenticate with Schematics.
2. Optional: Create an action by sending a POST request.
3. Create an inventory by sending a POST request.
4. Check the response status to verify that the creation was successful.