homelab/semaphore

AWX Installation Journey (Abandoned in Favor of Semaphore)

Overview

One of my goals for my homelab was learning Ansible AWX, the open-source upstream project of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

Initially I wanted to deploy AWX entirely with Docker since the rest of my homelab is containerized.

During this project I discovered that AWX has completely moved away from Docker Compose deployments and now officially targets Kubernetes via the AWX Operator.

Rather than continue patching an obsolete deployment method, I decided to document the investigation and switch to Semaphore, which better matches my current Docker-based homelab.

---

Environment

• Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
• Docker Engine
• Docker Compose v2
• Ansible Core 2.16
• Git
• GNU Make

---

Attempt 1 – Community Repository

I first cloned:

git clone https://github.com/fitbeard/ansible-platform.git

After exploring the project, I realized it was not a Docker deployment of AWX.

Instead it deploys:

• AWX Operator
• Automation Platform components
• Kubernetes resources

This was abandoned because my goal was running AWX directly in Docker.

---

Attempt 2 – Official AWX Repository

I cloned the official project:

git clone https://github.com/ansible/awx.git

Checked out the latest stable release:

git checkout 24.6.1

The repository still contains:

tools/docker-compose/

which initially appeared to support Docker deployments.

---

Docker Compose Preparation

Verified:

• Docker
• Docker Compose
• Make
• Python
• Ansible

All prerequisites were already installed.

---

Issue 1 – Broken docker-compose Binary

My machine still had an old legacy binary:

/usr/local/bin/docker-compose

Running:

docker-compose version

returned:

Not: not found

After inspecting the AWX Makefile, I confirmed it actually uses:

docker compose

instead of the old standalone binary.

Removing the obsolete binary fixed this issue.

---

Issue 2 – Ansible Galaxy Blocked

Running:

make docker-compose

failed with:

403 Forbidden

against:

https://galaxy.ansible.com

This appears to be due to regional sanctions.

Fortunately the repository already contained the required collection archives.

Installed manually:

ansible-galaxy collection install awx-awx-24.6.1.tar.gz

ansible-galaxy collection install community-docker-5.2.1.tar.gz

ansible-galaxy collection install flowerysong-hvault-0.3.0.tar.gz

After installation I skipped the Galaxy download step.

---

Issue 3 – Quay.io Blocked

The next failure occurred while Docker attempted to pull:

quay.io/sclorg/postgresql-15-c9s

The registry returned:

403 Forbidden

Testing Quay directly confirmed the registry was inaccessible from my location.

To continue testing, I modified the generated compose file to use:

image: postgres:15

and updated the PostgreSQL environment variables accordingly.

---

Issue 4 – Missing AWX Development Image

The final blocker was:

ghcr.io/ansible/awx_devel:HEAD

Docker returned:

manifest unknown

Investigation showed that:

• awx_devel is a development image
• versioned tags are no longer published
• the Docker Compose workflow expects developers to build the image locally

using:

make docker-compose-build

rather than pulling a stable image.

---

Conclusion

At this point it became clear that the Docker Compose deployment is no longer intended as a supported installation method.

Instead it exists only as a development environment for AWX contributors.

The officially supported installation method today is:

Kubernetes
    ↓
AWX Operator
    ↓
AWX

---

Decision

Rather than continue patching an obsolete deployment, I decided to stop the project.

For my Docker-based homelab I installed Semaphore instead.

Semaphore provides:

• Web UI
• Playbook execution
• Inventories
• SSH key management
• Scheduling
• Templates

while remaining simple to deploy with Docker Compose.

---

Lessons Learned

This project was still valuable because it reinforced several important DevOps skills:

• Reading project documentation
• Inspecting Makefiles
• Understanding Ansible collections
• Troubleshooting Docker image registries
• Working around regional network restrictions
• Understanding the evolution of deployment methods
• Recognizing when to stop patching legacy software and adopt the supported architecture instead

---

Future Plans

In the future I plan to learn Kubernetes properly.

Once comfortable with Kubernetes, I intend to deploy AWX using the officially supported AWX Operator.

Ubuntu
    ↓
Docker
    ↓
k3s
    ↓
Helm
    ↓
AWX Operator
    ↓
AWX

Until then, Semaphore satisfies my automation needs while allowing me to continue learning Ansible.