Auto-create Rundeck jobs on startup (Rundeck in Docker container)

Question

I'm trying to setup Rundeck inside a Docker container. I want to use Rundeck to provision and manage my Docker fleet. I found an image which ships an ansible-plugin as well. So far running simple playbooks and auto-discovering my Pi nodes work.

Docker script:

echo "[INFO] prepare rundeck-home directory"
mkdir ../../target/work/home
mkdir ../../target/work/home/rundeck
mkdir ../../target/work/home/rundeck/data

echo -e "[INFO] copy host inventory to rundeck-home"
cp resources/inventory/hosts.ini ../../target/work/home/rundeck/data/inventory.ini

echo -e "[INFO] pull image"
docker pull batix/rundeck-ansible

echo -e "[INFO] start rundeck container"
docker run -d \
    --name rundeck-raspi \
    -p 4440:4440 \
    -v "/home/sebastian/work/workspace/workspace-github/raspi/target/work/home/rundeck/data:/home/rundeck/data" \
    batix/rundeck-ansible

Now I want to feed the container with playbooks which should become jobs to run in Rundeck. Can anyone give me a hint on how I can create Rundeck jobs (which should invoke an ansible playbook) from the outside? Via api?

One way I can think of is creating the jobs manually once and exporting them as XML or YAML. When the container and Rundeck is up and running I could import the jobs automatically. Is there a certain folder in rundeck-home or somewhere where I can put those files for automatic import? Or is there an API call or something?

Could Jenkins be more suited for this task than Rundeck?

---

EDIT: just changed to a Dockerfile

FROM batix/rundeck-ansible:latest

COPY resources/inventory/hosts.ini /home/rundeck/data/inventory.ini
COPY resources/realms.properties /home/rundeck/etc/realms.properties
COPY resources/tokens.properties /home/rundeck/etc/tokens.properties


# import jobs
ENV RD_URL="http://localhost:4440"
ENV RD_TOKEN="yJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIs"
ENV rd_api="36"
ENV rd_project="Test-Project"
ENV rd_job_path="/home/rundeck/data/jobs"
ENV rd_job_file="Ping_Nodes.yaml"

# copy job definitions and script
COPY resources/jobs-definitions/Ping_Nodes.yaml /home/rundeck/data/jobs/Ping_Nodes.yaml
RUN curl -kSsv --header "X-Rundeck-Auth-Token:$RD_TOKEN" \
    -F yamlBatch=@"$rd_job_path/$rd_job_file" "$RD_URL/api/$rd_api/project/$rd_project/jobs/import?fileformat=yaml&dupeOption=update"

Do you know how I can delay the curl at the end until after the rundeck service is up and running?

Answer 1

That's right you can design an script with an API call using cURL (pointing to your Docker instance) after deploying your instance (a script that deploys your instance and later import the jobs), I leave a basic example (in this example you need the job definition in XML format).

For XML job definition format:

#!/bin/sh

# protocol
protocol="http"

# basic rundeck info
rdeck_host="localhost"
rdeck_port="4440"
rdeck_api="36"
rdeck_token="qNcao2e75iMf1PmxYfUJaGEzuVOIW3Xz"

# specific api call info
rdeck_project="ProjectEXAMPLE"
rdeck_xml_file="HelloWorld.xml"

# api call
curl -kSsv --header "X-Rundeck-Auth-Token:$rdeck_token" \
  -F xmlBatch=@"$rdeck_xml_file" "$protocol://$rdeck_host:$rdeck_port/api/$rdeck_api/project/$rdeck_project/jobs/import?fileformat=xml&dupeOption=update"

For YAML job definition format:

#!/bin/sh

# protocol
protocol="http"

# basic rundeck info
rdeck_host="localhost"
rdeck_port="4440"
rdeck_api="36"
rdeck_token="qNcao2e75iMf1PmxYfUJaGEzuVOIW3Xz"

# specific api call info
rdeck_project="ProjectEXAMPLE"
rdeck_yml_file="HelloWorldYML.yaml"

# api call
curl -kSsv --header "X-Rundeck-Auth-Token:$rdeck_token" \
  -F xmlBatch=@"$rdeck_yml_file" "$protocol://$rdeck_host:$rdeck_port/api/$rdeck_api/project/$rdeck_project/jobs/import?fileformat=yaml&dupeOption=update"

Here the API call.