Schedule deletion of unused template - ansible

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 of 25 and there is a next page mentioned "next": "...?page=2". The 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 }}"