Ansible AWX step fails when using DSL for Jenkins job - jenkins-job-dsl

Question

I'm running a Jenkins 2.140 server on Ubuntu 16.04 as well as an Ansible AWX 1.0.7.2 server using Ansible 2.6.2.
I'm creating a job in Jenkins which runs a template on my Ansible AWX server. I've got several other Jenkins jobs that run templates that all work so I know the general configuration I am using for this is OK.
However when I create the Jenkins job using a seed job which uses the JobDSL, the job fails at the Ansible AWX step with this output:
11:50:42 [EnvInject] - Loading node environment variables.
11:50:42 Building remotely on windows-slave (excel Windows orqaheadless windows) in workspace C:\JenkinsSlave\workspace\create-ec2-instance-2
11:50:42 ERROR: Build step failed with exception
11:50:42 java.lang.NullPointerException
11:50:42 at org.jenkinsci.plugins.ansible_tower.AnsibleTower.perform(AnsibleTower.java:129)
11:50:42 at hudson.tasks.BuildStepMonitor$1.perform(BuildStepMonitor.java:20)
11:50:42 at hudson.model.AbstractBuild$AbstractBuildExecution.perform(AbstractBuild.java:744)
11:50:42 at hudson.model.Build$BuildExecution.build(Build.java:206)
11:50:42 at hudson.model.Build$BuildExecution.doRun(Build.java:163)
11:50:42 at hudson.model.AbstractBuild$AbstractBuildExecution.run(AbstractBuild.java:504)
11:50:42 at hudson.model.Run.execute(Run.java:1815)
11:50:42 at hudson.model.FreeStyleBuild.run(FreeStyleBuild.java:43)
11:50:42 at hudson.model.ResourceController.execute(ResourceController.java:97)
11:50:42 at hudson.model.Executor.run(Executor.java:429)
11:50:42 Build step 'Ansible Tower' marked build as failure
11:50:42 [BFA] Scanning build for known causes...
11:50:42 [BFA] No failure causes found
11:50:42 [BFA] Done. 0s
11:50:42 Started calculate disk usage of build
11:50:42 Finished Calculation of disk usage of build in 0 seconds
11:50:42 Started calculate disk usage of workspace
11:50:42 Finished Calculation of disk usage of workspace in 0 seconds
11:50:42 Finished: FAILURE
That output doesn't really give me anything to work with especially as I'm no Java expert.
I configure the Jenkins job manually and all is well. This is the config.xml for the working job (only the AWX part). Note that all of these extra variables are passed in earlier in the job as parameters:
<builders>
<org.jenkinsci.plugins.ansible__tower.AnsibleTower plugin="ansible-tower#0.9.0">
<towerServer>AWX Server</towerServer>
<jobTemplate>create-ec2-instance</jobTemplate>
<extraVars>
key_name: ${key_name} ec2_termination_protection: ${ec2_termination_protection} vpc_subnet_id: ${vpc_subnet_id} security_groups: ${security_groups} instance_type: ${instance_type} instance_profile_name: ${instance_profile_name} assign_public_ip: ${assign_public_ip} region: ${region} image: ${image} instance_tags: ${instance_tags} ec2_wait_for_create: ${ec2_wait_for_create} ec2_wait_for_create_timeout: ${ec2_wait_for_create_timeout} exact_count: ${exact_count} delete_volume_on_termination: ${delete_volume_on_termination} data_disk_size: ${data_disk_size} private_domain: ${private_domain} route53_private_record_ttl: ${route53_private_record_ttl} dns_record: ${dns_record} elastic_ip: ${elastic_ip}
</extraVars>
<jobTags/>
<skipJobTags/>
<jobType>run</jobType>
<limit/>
<inventory/>
<credential/>
<verbose>true</verbose>
<importTowerLogs>true</importTowerLogs>
<removeColor>false</removeColor>
<templateType>job</templateType>
<importWorkflowChildLogs>false</importWorkflowChildLogs>
</org.jenkinsci.plugins.ansible__tower.AnsibleTower>
</builders>
And the config.xml from the failing, JobDSL-generated job, which looks the same to me:
<builders>
<org.jenkinsci.plugins.ansible__tower.AnsibleTower>
<towerServer>AWX Server</towerServer>
<jobTemplate>create-ec2-instance</jobTemplate>
<jobType>run</jobType>
<templateType>job</templateType>
<extraVars>
key_name: ${key_name} ec2_termination_protection: ${ec2_termination_protection} vpc_subnet_id: ${vpc_subnet_id} security_groups: ${security_groups} instance_type: ${instance_type} instance_profile_name: ${instance_profile_name} assign_public_ip: ${assign_public_ip} region: ${region} image: ${image} instance_tags: ${instance_tags} ec2_wait_for_create: ${ec2_wait_for_create} ec2_wait_for_create_timeout: ${ec2_wait_for_create_timeout} exact_count: ${exact_count} delete_volume_on_termination: ${delete_volume_on_termination} data_disk_size: ${data_disk_size} private_domain: ${private_domain} route53_private_record_ttl: ${route53_private_record_ttl} dns_record: ${dns_record} elastic_ip: ${elastic_ip}
</extraVars>
<verbose>true</verbose>
<importTowerLogs>true</importTowerLogs>
</org.jenkinsci.plugins.ansible__tower.AnsibleTower>
</builders>
So there are some expected differences you always get with JobDSL-generated jobs, such as the empty fields are missing, but this is the case with all of our (successful) other jobs that follow this process.
The JobDSL script is here:
configure { project ->
project / 'builders ' << 'org.jenkinsci.plugins.ansible__tower.AnsibleTower' {
towerServer 'AWX Server'
jobTemplate ('create-ec2-instance')
templateType 'job'
jobType 'run'
extraVars('''key_name: ${key_name}
ec2_termination_protection: ${ec2_termination_protection}
vpc_subnet_id: ${vpc_subnet_id}
security_groups: ${security_groups}
instance_type: ${instance_type}
instance_profile_name: ${instance_profile_name}
assign_public_ip: ${assign_public_ip}
region: ${region} image: ${image}
instance_tags: ${instance_tags}
ec2_wait_for_create: ${ec2_wait_for_create}
ec2_wait_for_create_timeout: ${ec2_wait_for_create_timeout}
exact_count: ${exact_count}
delete_volume_on_termination: ${delete_volume_on_termination}
data_disk_size: ${data_disk_size}
private_domain: ${private_domain}
route53_private_record_ttl: ${route53_private_record_ttl}
dns_record: ${dns_record}
elastic_ip: ${elastic_ip}''')
verbose 'true'
importTowerLogs 'true'
}
}
The job that this generates looks identical in the UI (as well as the XML) to my eye, and yet I keep getting that failure when I run it. Clearly I'm missing something but I can't for the life if me see what.

Answer 1

Despite the fact that other AWX jobs build without this, I added the missing (empty) fields, and the job started succeeding.
So, change my JobDSL script to this:
configure { project ->
project / 'builders ' << 'org.jenkinsci.plugins.ansible__tower.AnsibleTower' {
towerServer 'AWX Server'
jobTemplate ('create-ec2-instance')
extraVars('''key_name: ${key_name}
ec2_termination_protection: ${ec2_termination_protection}
vpc_subnet_id: ${vpc_subnet_id}
security_groups: ${security_groups}
instance_type: ${instance_type}
instance_profile_name: ${instance_profile_name}
assign_public_ip: ${assign_public_ip}
region: ${region}
image: ${image}
instance_tags: ${instance_tags}
ec2_wait_for_create: ${ec2_wait_for_create}
ec2_wait_for_create_timeout: ${ec2_wait_for_create_timeout}
exact_count: ${exact_count}
delete_volume_on_termination: ${delete_volume_on_termination}
data_disk_size: ${data_disk_size}
private_domain: ${private_domain}
route53_private_record_ttl: ${route53_private_record_ttl}
dns_record: ${dns_record}
elastic_ip: ${elastic_ip}''')
jobTags ''
skipJobTags ''
jobType 'run'
limit ''
inventory ''
credential ''
verbose 'true'
importTowerLogs 'true'
removeColor ''
templateType 'job'
importWorkflowChildLogs ''
And now working as expected.