Chapter 7. Add Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform sources and credentials

Define Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform sources to identify Ansible Controller instances for Discovery scanning.

Create Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform credentials to authenticate Discovery scans against Ansible Controller instances.

To run a scan, you must configure data for two basic structures: sources and credentials. The type of source that you are going to inspect during the scan determines the type of data that is required for both source and credential configuration.

A source contains a single asset or a set of multiple assets that are to be inspected during the scan. You can configure any of the following types of sources:

When you are working with network sources, you determine how many individual assets you should group within a single source. Currently, you can add multiple assets to a source only for network sources. The following list contains some of the other factors that you should consider when you are adding sources:

A credential contains data such as the username and password or SSH key of a user with sufficient authority to run the scan on all or part of the assets in that source. As with sources, credentials are configured as the network, vCenter, satellite, OpenShift, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, or RHACS type. A network source might require multiple network credentials to access all assets in a broad IP range. Conversely, a vCenter or satellite source typically uses a single credential to access a particular system management solution server. An OpenShift, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, or RHACS source uses a single credential to access a single cluster.

You can add new sources from the Sources view and you can add new credentials from the Credentials view. You can also add new or select previously existing credentials during source creation. It is during source creation that you associate a credential directly with a source.

Because sources and credentials must have matching types, any credential that you add during source creation shares the same type as the source. If you want to use an existing credential during source creation, the list of available credentials contains only credentials of the same type. For example, during network source creation, only network credentials are available for selection.

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform scans authenticate to the host Internet Protocol (IP) address by using a username and password over HTTPS. By default, scans use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificate validation, which you can configure during source creation.

You might need to adjust the level of certificate validation to connect properly to the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform host IP address during a scan. For example, your Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform host IP address might use a verified SSL certificate from a certificate authority. During source creation, you can upgrade SSL certificate validation to check for that certificate during a scan of that source. Conversely, your host IP address might use self-signed certificates. During source creation, you can leave the SSL validation at the default so that scan of that source does not check for a certificate. This choice, to leave the option at the default for a self-signed certificate, could possibly avoid scan errors.

You might also need to disable SSL as the method of secure communication during the scan. This applies if the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform host IP address is not configured to use SSL communication for web applications. For example, your Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform host IP address might be configured to communicate with web applications by using HTTP with port 80. If so, then during source creation you can disable SSL communication for scans of that source.