Event driven Ansible allows users to define rules and conditions that trigger Ansible automation. Rules can be triggered by events from sources like webhooks, alertmanager alerts, or new files. When a condition is met, actions like running a playbook or module are executed. This provides an event-based way to automatically fix and troubleshoot issues, similar to IFTTT for sysadmins. The event driven Ansible installation process and running a sample rule that executes a playbook in response to a webhook are demonstrated. While still in early development, the core functionality exists to build out event driven automation through defining sources, conditions, and actions in a rulebook.

1. Automatic Healing with Ansible
...Or with Event Driven Ansible!

2. About Me
Sebastian Gumprich
T-Systems MMS GmbH
Lots of time

3. What is Event Driven Ansible?
> a new way to enhance and expand automation. It improves
IT speed and agility, while enabling consistency and
resilience.
IFTT for sysadmins

4. How does it work?
Playbooks + Rulebook =

5. Sources
Webhooks
Alertmanager
URLs
Files
more to come

6. Rules
What should happen when?

7. Conditions
Alerts from Alertmanager
Unreachable Website
Newly created files
Message in Webhook

8. Actions
run_playbook
run_module
set_fact

9. Rulebook
---
- name: Listen for events on a webhook
hosts: all
## Define our source for events
sources:
- ansible.eda.webhook:
host: 0.0.0.0
port: 5000
## Define the conditions we are looking for
rules:
- name: Say Hello
condition: event.payload.message == "Ansible is super cool"
## Define the action we should take should the condition be met
action:
run_playbook:
name: say-what.yml

10. Why?
Ansible is push-based
Event Driven Ansible is event-based

11. Helps to automatically fix and troubleshoot
problems

12. Installation
apt-get --assume-yes install build-essential maven openjdk-17-jdk python3-dev python3-pip
export JDK_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk-amd64
export JAVA_HOME=$JDK_HOME
export PIP_NO_BINARY=jpy
export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin
pip3 install -U Jinja2
pip3 install ansible ansible-rulebook ansible-runner wheel

13. Add a Playbook and Inventory
playbook:
- hosts: localhost
connection: local
tasks:
- debug:
msg: "Thank you, my friend!"
inventory
localhost

14. Running it
> ansible-rulebook --rulebook webhook-rule.yml -i inventory.yml --verbose
INFO:ansible_rulebook.app:Starting sources
INFO:ansible_rulebook.app:Starting rules
INFO:ansible_rulebook.engine:run_ruleset
...
INFO:ansible_rulebook.engine:load source
INFO:ansible_rulebook.engine:load source filters
INFO:ansible_rulebook.engine:Calling main in ansible.eda.webhook
INFO:ansible_rulebook.engine:Waiting for event from Listen for events on a webhook

15. Using it
What I do
> curl -d "{"message": "Ansible is super cool"}" http://127.0.0.1:5000/endpoint
What Event Driven Ansible does
INFO:ansible_rulebook.engine:action args: {'name': 'say-what.yml'}
INFO:ansible_rulebook.builtin:running Ansible playbook: say-what.yml
INFO:ansible_rulebook.builtin:ruleset: Listen for events on a webhook, rule: Say Hello
INFO:ansible_rulebook.builtin:Calling Ansible runner
PLAY [say thanks] **************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] *********************************************************
ok: [localhost]
TASK [debug] *******************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
"msg": "say what"
}

16. Dynamic loading of Playbooks (but not rulebooks)

17. Event Driven Ansible Server
Like AWX/Tower/whatever it's called now

18. Event Driven Ansible Server #2
Web-UI
REST-API

19. Is it production-ready?
In Early Development
Core functionality is there

20. Thanks!
Let's chat!