Schedule deletion of unused template

Question

In Ansible Tower, is there a possibility to create a scheduled task that checks if a template has not been executed for one year and if so, deletes it?

Answer 1

The short answers is: yes, of course. The long answer is: someone has to create such task. To do so, one may getting familiar with the Ansible Tower REST API , in detail Job Templates - List Jobs for a Job Template .

In example, a call for Jobs of a Job Template which was never executed

curl --silent --user ${ACCOUNT}:${PASSWORD} https://${TOWER_URL}/api/v2/job_templates/${ID}/jobs/ --write-out "\n%{http_code}\n"| jq .

would result into an output of

{
  "count": 0,
  "next": null,
  "previous": null,
  "results": []
}
200

A call for Jobs of a Job Template which is executed daily would result into an output of

{
  "count": 70,
  "next": "/api/v2/job_templates/<id>/jobs/?page=2",
  "previous": null,
  "results": [
    {
      "id": <id>,
    <snip>
      "created": "2022-06-10T05:57:18.976798Z",
      "modified": "2022-06-10T05:57:19.666354Z",
      "name": "<name>",
      "description": "<description>",
      "unified_job_template": <id>,
      "launch_type": "manual",
      "status": "successful",
      "failed": false,
      "started": "2022-06-10T05:57:19.870208Z",
      "finished": "2022-06-10T05:57:33.752072Z",
      "canceled_on": null,
      "elapsed": 13.882,
      "job_explanation": "",
      "execution_node": "<executionNode>",
      "controller_node": "",
      "job_type": "run",
      "inventory": <id>,
      "project": <id>,
      "playbook": "<path>",
      "scm_branch": "",
      "forks": 0,
      "limit": "<hostgroup>",
      "verbosity": 0,
      "extra_vars": "{\"if_there_any\": \"false\"}",
      "job_tags": "check",
      "force_handlers": false,
      "skip_tags": "",
      "start_at_task": "",
      "timeout": 0,
      "use_fact_cache": false,
      "organization": <id>,
      "job_template": <id>,
      "passwords_needed_to_start": [
        "ssh_password"
      ],
      "allow_simultaneous": false,
      "artifacts": {},
      "scm_revision": "<rev>",
      "instance_group": 1,
      "diff_mode": false,
      "job_slice_number": 0,
      "job_slice_count": 1,
      "webhook_service": "",
      "webhook_credential": null,
      "webhook_guid": ""
    }
  ]
}
200

Since the goal is to execute it via Ansible Engine, as well schedule via Ansible Tower, a sample rest.yml playbook

---
- hosts: localhost
  become: false
  gather_facts: false

  vars:

    TOWER_API_URL: "<tower_url>/api/v2"
    FILTER: ".version"
    ID: "<id>"

  tasks:

  - name: Example REST API call
    shell:
      cmd: curl --silent -u '{{ ansible_user }}:{{ ansible_password }}' --location {{ TOWER_API_URL }}/ping | jq {{ FILTER }}
      warn: false
    register: result
    failed_when: result.rc != 0
    changed_when: false
    check_mode: false

  - name: Show result
    debug:
      msg: "{{ result.stdout }}"

  - name: List Jobs for a Job Template
    uri:
      url: "https://{{ TOWER_API_URL }}/job_templates/{{ ID }}/jobs/"
      user: "{{ ansible_user }}"
      password: "{{ ansible_password }}"
      force_basic_auth: true
      method: GET
      validate_certs: yes
      return_content: yes
      status_code: 200
      body_format: json
    check_mode: false
    register: result

  - name: Show result
    debug:
      msg: "{{ result.json.results }}" # list of jobs

which can be called from CLI via

sshpass -p ${PASSWORD} ansible-playbook --user ${ACCOUNT} --ask-pass rest.yml

Please take note that the "count": 70 is greater than the result set result.json.results | length result.json.results | length of 25 and there is a next page mentioned "next": "...?page=2" . The result.json.results | last result.json.results | last therefore does not contain the most recent execution. This is because of Pagination .

Depending on the setup and actual configuration of Ansible Tower one may need to adjust the page_size . In example to get the most recent result

...
      url: "https://{{ TOWER_API_URL }}/job_templates/{{ ID }}/jobs/?page_size=100"
...
      msg: "{{ result.json.results | last }}"