Create Local File With Ansible Template From Variables - ansible

Question

I'm running an ansible playbook against a number of ec2 instances to check if a directory exists.
---
- hosts: all
become: true
tasks:
- name: Check if foo is installed
stat:
path:
/etc/foo
register: path
- debug: msg="{{path.stat.exists}}"
And I would like to generate a localfile that lists the private IP addresses of the ec2 instances and states whether or not the directory foo does exist.
I can get the private IP addresses of the instances with this task
- name: Get info from remote
shell: curl http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/local-ipv4
register: bar
- debug: msg="{{bar.stdout}}"
How do I create a local file with content
IP address: 10.100.0.151 directory foo - false
IP address: 10.100.0.152 directory foo - true
I've tried adding a block for this as such
- hosts: localhost
become: false
vars:
installed: "{{bar.stdout}}"
status: "{{path.stat.exists}}"
local_file: "./Report.txt"
tasks:
- name: Create local file with info
copy:
dest: "{{ local_file }}"
content: |
"IP address {{ installed }} foo - {{ status }}"
But it doesn't look like I can read values of variables from earlier steps.
What am I doing wrong please?

Answer 1

A similar question has been answered here.
Basically what you want is to reference it through the host var variable.
This should work.
- hosts: localhost
become: false
vars:
local_file: "./Report.txt"
tasks:
- name: Create local file with info
lineinfile:
path: "{{ local_file }}"
line:
"IP Address: {{ hostvars[item]['bar'].stdout }} - Installed: {{ hostvars[item]['path'].stat.exists }}"
with_items: "{{ query('inventory_hostnames', 'all') }}"
And this should populate your local ./Report.txt file, with the info you need.

Answer 2

I've used the ec2_metadata_facts module to get the IP address us ingansible_ec2_local_ipv4
I've also created the directory /tmp/testdir on the second host.
- hosts: test_hosts
gather_facts: no
vars:
directory_name: /tmp/testdir
tasks:
- ec2_metadata_facts:
- name: check if directory '{{ directory_name }}' exsists
stat:
path: "{{ directory_name }}"
register: path
# I make the outputfile empty
# because the module lineinfile(as I know) can't overwrite a file
# but appends line to the old content
- name: create empty output file
copy:
content: ""
dest: outputfile
delegate_to: localhost
- name: write output to outputfile
lineinfile:
dest: outputfile
line: "IP Address: {{ ansible_ec2_local_ipv4 }} {{ directory_name }} - {{ path.stat.exists }}"
state: present
with_items: "{{ groups.all }}"
# with_items: "{{ ansible_play_hosts }}" can also be used here
delegate_to: localhost
The outputfile looks like:
IP Address: xxx.xx.x.133 /tmp/testdir - False
IP Address: xxx.xx.x.45 /tmp/testdir - True