Upgrade Ansible Tower - Minor upgrade

Question

Anyone got a proper instruction set to upgrade Ansible Tower 3.4 to 3.6 ? (Ansible 2.5, Database - postgres 9.6)

Found Ansible Doc but not in details. Thanks

Answer 1

EDIT: The original question pertained to upgrading AWX. It's been edited and now pertains to upgrading Ansible Tower. My answer below only applies to upgrading AWX.

If you used the docker-compose installation method and pointed postgres_data_dir to a persistent directory on the host, upgrading AWX is straightforward. I deployed AWX 2.0.0 in 2018 and have upgraded it to every subsequent release (currently running 9.1.0) without issue. Below is my upgrade method which preserves all data including secrets between upgrades and does not rely on using the tower cli / awx cli tool.

AWX path assumptions:

Existing installation: /opt/awx

New release: /tmp/awx

AWX inventory file assumptions:

use_docker_compose=true
postgres_data_dir=/opt/postgres
docker_compose_dir=/var/lib/awx

Manual upgrade process:

• Backup your AWX host before continuing! Consider backing up your postgres database as well.
• Download the new release of AWX and unpack it to /tmp/awx
• Ensure that the patch package is installed on the host.
• Create a patch file containing the differences between the new and existing inventory files:

diff -u /tmp/awx/installer/inventory /opt/awx/installer/inventory > /tmp/awx_inv_patch

• Patch the new inventory file with the differences:

patch /tmp/awx/installer/inventory < /tmp/awx_inv_patch

• Verify that the files now match:

diff -s /tmp/awx/installer/inventory /opt/awx/installer/inventory

• Copy the new release directory over the existing one:

cp -Rp /tmp/awx/* /opt/awx/

• Edit /var/lib/awx/docker-compose.yml and change the version numbers after image: ansible/awx_web: and image: ansible/awx_task: to match the new version of AWX that you're upgrading to.
• Stop the current AWX containers:

cd /var/lib/awx

docker-compose stop

• Run the installer:

cd /opt/awx/inventory

ansible-playbook -i inventory install.yml

AWX starts the upgrade process, which usually completes within a couple minutes. I'll typically monitor the upgrade progress with docker logs -f awx_web until I see RESULT 2 / OKREADY appear.

• If everything is working as intended, I shut the containers down, pull and then recreate them using docker-compose:

cd /var/lib/awx

docker-compose stop

docker-compose pull && docker-compose up --force-recreate -d

• If everything is still working as intended, I delete /tmp/awx and /tmp/awx_inv_patch.

Answer 2

Updgrades in AWX are not supported by ansible/redhat. Only the commercial Tower Licence allows to access scripts and procedures to do this.

From the awx project FAQ

Q: Can I upgrade from one version of AWX to another?

A: Direct in-place upgrades between AWX versions are not supported. It is possible to migrate data between different versions of AWX using the tower-cli tool. To migrate between different instances of AWX, please follow the instructions at https://github.com/ansible/awx/blob/devel/DATA_MIGRATION.md.

The reference link on github AWX project will teach you how to export your current data with tower-cli and reimport it in the new version you install. Note that all credentials are exported with blank secrets so you will have to update them with the passwords/secrets once imported.