Reference AWX Username

Dustin · April 15, 2024, 2:16pm

In AWX, I’m looking for a way to reference the details of the user who executes a job.

Specifically, I want to get either their username or email address. Then, during one of my playbooks that creates records in ServiceNow I can associate those new records to them instead of me.

Right now, all records that my playbooks create in SNOW (Changes, INC, REQ, etc.) get assigned to me and then I look to see who created the job and manually change ownership.

If there is nothing built in, I’m thinking of using the AWX API:

Look for the current running Job
Find who executed the job
Pull the details of the user who executed the job
Lookup the user in SNOW based on info pulled from AWX API

Thoughts? Recommendations?

Thank you,

Dustin

Denney-tech · April 15, 2024, 2:29pm

There are awx_meta_vars that I think you can leverage. I haven’t actually tried this, but it was mentioned by @fosterseth in another thread. Looking at what’s there, I think you can get awx_* vars for the job/workflow, schedule, user, and inventory as shown here:

github.com

ansible/awx/blob/d06ce8f9119267862fcca00fc85af3a9f323d61c/awx/main/models/unified_jobs.py#L1529


      
                  default_instance_group_names.append(settings.DEFAULT_CONTROL_PLANE_QUEUE_NAME)
          
              default_instance_groups = list(InstanceGroup.objects.filter(name__in=default_instance_group_names))
          
              # assure deterministic precedence by making sure the default group is first
              if (not settings.IS_K8S) and default_instance_groups and default_instance_groups[0].name != settings.DEFAULT_EXECUTION_QUEUE_NAME:
                  default_instance_groups.reverse()
          
              return default_instance_groups
          
          def awx_meta_vars(self):
              """
              The result of this method is used as extra_vars of a job launched
              by AWX, for purposes of client playbook hooks
              """
              r = {}
              for name in JOB_VARIABLE_PREFIXES:
                  r['{}_job_id'.format(name)] = self.pk
                  r['{}_job_launch_type'.format(name)] = self.launch_type
          
              created_by = getattr_dne(self, 'created_by')

Dustin · April 15, 2024, 2:51pm

Thank you. While searching, all I could find were references to AWX/Tower/AAP Credentials; which is not what I wanted.

I’ll give this a try and report back.

jpmens · April 16, 2024, 4:17am

Both {{ awx_user_id }} and {{ awx_user_email }} work as well as the others @Denney-tech refers to, but beware the two I mention are specifically not set when the job template is triggered by an incoming Webhook.

Dustin · April 17, 2024, 8:17pm

I have not yet gotten time to go back and start playing with this. I appreciate the followup and when I get time, I’ll definitely get to it.

The laundry list is too big!!!

Dustin · April 25, 2024, 11:46am

"{{ tower_user_email }}" worked perfectly. I finally got a chance to test this one last night.

After finding the variable name, I was able to find the documentations here:
Ansible Tower Documentation