![[Howto] Access Red Hat Satellite REST API via Ansible [Update]](https://liquidat.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/puzzle-654957_1920.jpg?w=1200)
As with all tools, Red Hat Satellite offers a REST API. Ansible offers a simple way to access the API.
Background
Most of the programs and functions developed these days offer a REST API. Red Hat for example usually follows the “API first” methodology with most of the products these days, thus all functions of all programs can be accessed via REST API calls. For example I covered how to access the CloudForms REST API via Python.
While exploring a REST API via Python teaches a lot about the API and how to deal with all the basic tasks around REST communication, in daily enterprise business API calls should be automated – say hello to Ansible.
Ansible offers the URI module to work with generic HTTP requests. It offers various authentication modules, can pass general headers and provides ways to deal with different return codes and has a generic body field. Together with Ansible’s extensive variable features this makes the ideal combination for automated REST queries.
Setup
The setup is fairly simple: a Red Hat Satellite Server in a newer version (6.1 or newer), Ansible, and that’s it. The URI module in Satellite comes pre-installed.
Since the URI module accesses the target hosts via http, the actual host executing the http commands is the host on which the playbooks run. As a result, the host definition in the playbook needs to be localhost. In such case it doesn’t make sense to gather facts, either, so gather_facts: no can be set to save time.
In the module definition itself, it might make sense for test environments to ignore certification errors if the Satellite server certificate is not properly signed: validate_certs: no. Also, sometimes the Python library stumbles upon the status code 401 to initiate authentication. In that case, the option force_basic_auth: yes might help.
Last but not least, the API itself must be understood. The appropriate documentation is pretty helpful here: Red Hat Satellite API Guide. Especially the numerious examples at the end are a good start to build own REST calls in Ansible.
Getting values
Getting values via the REST API is pretty easy – the usual URL needs to be queried, the result is provided as JSON (in this case). The following example playbook asks the Satellite for the information about a given host. The output is reduced to the puppet modules, the number of modules is counted and the result is printed out.
$ cat api-get.yml
---
- name: call API from Satellite
hosts: localhost
gather_facts: no
vars:
satelliteurl: satellite-server.example.com
client: helium.example.com
tasks:
- name: get modules for given host from satellite
uri:
url: https://{{ satelliteurl }}/api/v2/hosts/{{ client }}
method: GET
user: admin
password: password
force_basic_auth: yes
validate_certs: no
register: restdata
- name: output rest data
debug: msg="{{ restdata.json.all_puppetclasses | count }}"
The execution of the playbook show the number of the installed Puppet modules:
$ ansible-playbook api-get.yml
PLAY [call API from Satellite] ************************************************
TASK: [get ip and name from satellite] ****************************************
ok: [localhost]
TASK: [output rest data] ******************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
"msg": "8"
}
PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
localhost : ok=2 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0
If the Jinja filter string | count is removed, the actual Puppet classes are listed.
Performing searches
Performing searches is simply another URL, and thus works the exact same way. The following playbook shows a search for all servers which are part of a given Puppet environment:
---
- name: call API from Satellite
hosts: localhost
gather_facts: no
vars:
satelliteurl: satellite-server.example.com
clientenvironment: production
tasks:
- name: get Puppet environment from Satellite
uri:
url: https://{{ satelliteurl }}/api/v2/hosts/?search=environment={{ clientenvironment }}
method: GET
user: admin
password: password
force_basic_auth: yes
validate_certs: no
register: restdata
- name: output rest data
debug: msg="{{ restdata.json }}"
Changing configuration: POST
While querying the REST API can already be pretty interesting, automation requires the ability to change values as well. This can be done by changing the method: in the playbook to POST. Also, additional headers are necessary, and a body defining what data will be posted to Satellite.
The following example implements the example CURL call from the API guide mentioned above to add another architecture to Satellite:
$ cat api-post.yml
---
- name: call API from Satellite
hosts: localhost
gather_facts: no
vars:
satelliteurl: satellite-server.example.com
tasks:
- name: set additional architecture in Satellite
uri:
url: https://{{ satelliteurl }}/api/architectures
method: POST
user: admin
password: password
force_basic_auth: yes
validate_certs: no
HEADER_Content-Type: application/json
HEADER_Accept: :application/json,version=2
body: >
{"architecture":{"name":"i686"}}
register: restdata
- name: output rest data
debug: msg="{{ restdata }}"
The result can be looked up in the web interface: an architecture of the type i686 can now be found.
Update
Note that the body: > notation, folded scalars, makes it much easier to paste payload. If you are providing the payload without the closing bracket but on the same line, all the quotation marks need to be escaped:
body: "{\"architecture\":{\"name\":\"i686\"}}"
Conclusion
Ansible can easily access, query and control the Red Hat Satellite REST API and thus other REST APIs out there as well.
Ansible offers the possibility to automate almost any tool which expose a REST API. Together with the dynamic variable system results from one tool can easily be re-used to perform actions in another tool. That way even complex setups can be integrated with each other via Ansible rather easy.
![[Short Tip] Use Red Hat Satellite 6 as an inventory resource in Ansible](https://liquidat.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/orion-568635.jpg?w=1200)
![[Howto] Accessing CloudForms updated REST API with Python](https://liquidat.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/volcanic-eruption-67668_1920.jpg?w=1200)
CloudForms comes with a REST API which was updated to version 2.0 in CloudForms 3.2. It covers substantially more functions compared to v1.0 and also offers feature parity with the old SOAP interface. This post holds a short introduction to calling the REST API via Python.
As I mentioned in my 
/home/liquidat 