How to iterate over variables in an ansible dictionary - ansible

Question

I have a role that should scatter NGINX configs across different servers using Jinja2 templates, referring to the variables specified in defaults/main, please tell me how to write a loop to iterate over these variables correctly, tried it through with_items and with_nested, but nothing happens.
The defaults/main file looks like this:
allservers:
server1:
- { src: 'templates/sites-enabled/api.j2', dest: '/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/api.conf' }
- { src: 'templates/sites-enabled/citizens.j2', dest: '/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/citizens.conf' }
- { src: 'templates/sites-enabled/control.j2', dest: '/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/control.conf' }
- { src: 'templates/sites-enabled/documents.j2', dest: '/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/documents.conf' }
- { src: 'templates/sites-enabled/orders.j2', dest: '/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/orders.conf' }
- { src: 'templates/sites-enabled/logs.j2', dest: '/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/logs.conf' }
server2:
- { src: 'templates/sites-enabled/permissions.j2', dest: '/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/permissions.conf' }
- { src: 'templates/sites-enabled/documents.j2', dest: '/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/documents.conf' }
- { src: 'templates/sites-enabled/default.j2', dest: '/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default' }
- { src: 'templates/sites-enabled/orders.j2', dest: '/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/orders.conf' }
- { src: 'templates/sites-enabled/settings.j2', dest: '/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/settings.conf' }

Answer 1

I assume you do not want to change your data structure, and that server1 and server2 refer to hosts in your inventory.
---
- hosts: server1:server2
remote_user: ansible
vars:
allservers:
server1:
- { src: "/tmp/file1", dest: "/tmp"}
- { src: "/tmp/file2", dest: "/tmp"}
- { src: "/tmp/file3", dest: "/tmp"}
server2:
- { src: "/tmp/file4", dest: "/tmp"}
- { src: "/tmp/file5", dest: "/tmp"}
- { src: "/tmp/file6", dest: "/tmp"}
tasks:
- name: Copy template
template:
src: "{{ item.src }}"
dest: "{{ item.dest }}"
when: inventory_hostname in allservers.keys()
with_items:
- "{{ allservers[inventory_hostname] }}"
Another solutions is to include a task (copy_template.yml) which you will iterate over using with_dict: allservers.
playbook.yml
---
- hosts: server1:server2
remote_user: ansible
vars:
allservers:
server1:
- { src: "/tmp/file1", dest: "/tmp"}
- { src: "/tmp/file2", dest: "/tmp"}
- { src: "/tmp/file3", dest: "/tmp"}
server2:
- { src: "/tmp/file4", dest: "/tmp"}
- { src: "/tmp/file5", dest: "/tmp"}
- { src: "/tmp/file6", dest: "/tmp"}
tasks:
- include: copy_template.yml
vars:
server: "{{ item.key }}"
with_dict:
- "{{ allservers }}"
copy_template.yml
---
- debug:
msg: "{{ template.src }} and {{ template.dest }}"
loop: "{{ allservers[server] }}"
when: server == inventory_hostname
loop_control:
loop_var: template