More problems with the lab env DO374

[SubuRama]

See my previous topic on DO374 workstation VM being on RHEL8. keeping that issue aside, once I install ansible-navigator and try to use it, it fails to pull the Execution Environment with the error such as the following:

WARN[0000] Failed, retrying in 1s ... (1/3) Error: initializing source docker://utility.lab.example.com/ee-supported-rhel8:latest: pinging container registry.utility.lab.example.com: Get "https:/utility.lab.example.com/v2/": dial tcp 172.25.250.220:443: connect: no route to host

I have already deleted and recreated the lab environment a few times.

it has been my experience with the courses on RHLS that the lab environmetns have not been very reliable. It's a pity since the courses are good by themselves.

Thank you

Subu

[laurpaum]

When this happens, just stop and start your lab environment (do not delete it). First time I created the lab environment for this course, I couldn't connect to the workstation console.

[Chetan_Tiwary_]

Hello @SubuRama !

In this case please raise a support case and our team will help you. At this moment we do not have any blocker to any course ( and their labs ). It could be a momentarily glitch or a network error - we need to check from backend regarding the issue from your account.

[SubuRama]

Will do. Thank you.

Q: Where do you see the responses to the supported tickets? I got an email asking for snashots but I could not figure out where to continue the conversation. I just replied by email.

My initial question on DO374 was that the lab env is based on RHEL8 and the instructor is showing RHEL9. But it looks like ONLY that section was cut&pasted from a RH294 class which is based on RHEL9.

DO374 still seems to be based on RHEL8 and just this video referencing RHEL9 is an anomaly.

Can you confirm this?

Subu

[Chetan_Tiwary_]

Yes @SubuRama , replying via mail is perfectly fine. 

DO374 lab is based on RHEL 8.6. 

Please mention the anomaly in the ticket ( a reply will be ok too ) , we will check and try to update it from our end. 

[DeepakRamanath]

Stumbled upon this issue as I just started the course. Where does ansible-navigator saves this registry configuration entry and how to verify that a system has a registry setup? Thanks

[DeepakRamanath]

I figured out what the issue is. In the course it is mentioned that the execution environment repository should be set to hub.lab.example.com, however in the .ansible-navigator.yml file, that is, the one obtained after cloning, the repository is set to utility.lab.example.com. Chaning this will fix the issue. Hope it helps

[Travis · Accepted solution]

@DeepakRamanath -

You are talking about "after cloning" ... after cloning what? The .ansible-navigator.yml file shouldn't be changed at all with cloning of GIT repositories or the creating of GIT repos. Also, once you get to Chapter 4, you should be working directly with the ansible-navigator.yml at the project level and should be going back to the default one in the user's home directory.

You are correct in that in our RH294, the file container image was pre-installed on workstation and it was available from the Utility server. However, in the DO374 and the DO467 course, we have a full-blown AAP setup, so the container image is coming from private automation hub.

[DeepakRamanath]

In the DO374 orientation video the instructor suggests cloning the classroom_env repository. In this repo, the .ansible-navigator.yml (hidden file) has an entry to the utility.lab.example.com as the container repository. When, ansible-navigator command is used, this leads to the error in question reported originally by @SubuRama To mitigate the issue, edit the file .ansible-navigator.yml and change the container repository entry to hub.lab.example.com and authenticate to this repository using podman login hub.lab.example.com

Alternatively, podman login registry.redhat.io can be used with Red Hat credentials to pull the execution environment image before hand, otherwise the ansible-navigator command defaults to pulling from utility.lab.example.com

There seems to be no issue in the subsequent lessons as the working example uses hub.lab.example.com as the container registry.

Hope this clarifies.

[Travis · Accepted solution]

@DeepakRamanath and @SubuRama -

So Ricardo da Costa is the person doing the video classroom for the course. The https://gitlab.com/rgdacosta/classroom_env address and repository is his personal repository and not part of Red Hat training and not specifically part of the DO374 course. Looking at the additional details you've provided I know exactly what has happened now and why you ended up getting what you did. 

I often share repositories with my students during a delivery, but I've been creating course-specific repositories instead of a more generic one because of exactly what you have run into. He can re-use the classroom_env repository for all of his course deliveries, but needs to remember to change the EEI image repository and tags as these vary between courses. If you were to use this in the RH294 coruse, it would be right because the registry comes from the Utility server. In the DO374 and DO467 it comes from Hub. If nothing is defined it defaults back up to Red Hat's container registry and attempts to go with the RHELxxx-Supported, as newer versions of some courses now use a RHEL9-based EEI vs. the RHEL8-based EEI.

So there isn't anything to fix here from a Red Hat Training or course perspective, you need to just be mindful when using resources provided by instructors like Ricardo and myself and know that those are separate from what is officially provided by Red Hat.