EX294V9K exam

[DiligentPoetry]

Hi Guys, 
Can someone please confirm what software versions does the EX294V9K exam is currently being conducted on? Namely, "Redhat OS version", "Ansible Version" and "Ansible Automation Platform Version"?

Looking for exact subversions, i.e something like RHEL 9.0, Ansible 2.9, AAP 2.2.

Asking in depth because there are considerable differences between ansible 2.9 and 2.13. 

There was a similar question asked before but it's been 2 years since then and I was wondering if something has changed. 

[Travis · Accepted solution]

@DiligentPoetry -

It will be RHEL v9 and leveraging AAP 2.2 essentially. The differences before were drastic because of changes in Ansible with Ansible Engine and Ansible Core. With the newer product bundling, under the AAP umbrella, we are leveraging Ansible Execution Environments and ansible-navigator. This is very similar to the RH294v9 course. We are in the process of updating that course and the exam to AU294v10 which is based on RHEL10 and the latest AAP 2.5 release. What is key in this environment is that we will also be leveraging the Ansible development tools which means the devtools container functionality in VSCode. So depending on when you decide to take and schedule the exam, the EX294v9 will be based on RHEL9 and AAP2.2 and the EX294v10 will be RHEL10 and AAP 2.5.

[DiligentPoetry]

Thanks for the indepth reply @Travis ,

I've setup my lab (5 VMs) now with this OS and Ansible combo, let me know if i need to change / update the components to prepare for my EX294V9K exam. Thanks a lot in advance.

OS Version: Rhel 9.0

AAP version: 2.2

Ansible Core: 2.13.10 (from AAP 2.2 repo)

Ansible Navigator: 2.1.0 (from AAP 2.2 repo)

Python: 3.9.10 (default)

[Travis]

@DiligentPoetry -

Again, this environment seems OK, however, I will direct you to my first reply ... we aren't using Ansible Core really (ansible-playbook) commands. For the RH294 course, we are using AAP and therefore the execution environments which requires Ansible Navigator to be installed. So the important thing is that whatever machine you are running your playbooks from has the ansible-navigator RPM installed as well as the RHEL8 supported EE for the execution environment image. It looks like you have all the software covered, but no details on which VM is the "control node" housing Navigator nor did you mention anything about an EE.

[DiligentPoetry]

Hi Travis,

I am in the middle of setting up the ansible-navigator EE as per the student guide. I am assuming it's just the simple 1 container auto setup as written in the guide.

All the aforementioned software config is deployed on my control node (VM1)

Managed nodes are vanillla, nothing installed, just rhel 9.0 and python 3.9.10 as i believe this is the base managed node config that we get in the exam atleast from an OS perspective.

P.S: I am doing the exam on V9.0.

[Travis]

Excellent. The final thing you might want to do is either setup a local yum repository or have those systems "registered" so that your playbooks to installremove software and services will work.

[DiligentPoetry]

Thanks for confirming travis, just one last thing, as I was implementing your suggestions using ansible on all nodes. I got this non exit error.

"[WARNING]: Collection community.general does not support Ansible version
2.13.10"

Yet the task was succesful.

Should id be concerned about this? because my exam will be on this version and the general  repo that i installed via "ansible-galaxy collection install community.general" is giving this warning, Is it safe to ignore such warnings ?

Also, do we have access to docs.ansbile.com during our exam? 

[Travis]

@DiligentPoetry -

So not sure why you needed community.general or what you are using it for, but keep in mind, you are using Execution Environments, so Ansible core doesn't need to be installed on all versions or even at all as it is provided in your execution environment image. 

ansible-galaxy command can extract and install collections in your Ansible project allowing those modules to be used in your playbooks. The configuration file allows the EE to pick up the installed collections from your project directory and use them in your playbooks within the EE.

Collections are in versions and you have many versions of a single collection. Some versions work with particular versions of Ansible and some do not. You have a version of the collection not supported by the version of Ansible you installed with the ansible-galaxy command. It is possible to install versions of collections that will work and you won't get a warning. I'm assuming you just allowed the collection to be installed from Galaxy which meant you got the latest version. https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/repo/published/community/general

which required 

Requires Ansible

>=2.17.0

https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/repo/published/community/general/?version=7.5.0

It is never safe to ignore warnings because they give meaningful data. It was telling you that you can't use the collection that was installed because it wasn't supported with your version of Ansible. In an exam or classroom environment, we control what is available to students in the lab environment so we provide locked and supported versions.

You will not have Internet in the classroom environment, but documentation is available (offline). That means some things like the "search" may not and will not work as expected so you need to know how to navigate the documentation.