Installing multiple packages in Ansible - ansible

Question

I have this task in Ansible:
- name: Install mongodb
yum:
name:
- "mongodb-org-{{ mongodb_version }}"
- "mongodb-org-server-{{ mongodb_version }}"
- "mongodb-org-mongos-{{ mongodb_version }}"
- "mongodb-org-shell-{{ mongodb_version }}"
- "mongodb-org-tools-{{ mongodb_version }}"
state: present
notify: Restart mongodb
Is there a way I can indicate the version without having to use a loop like this? What is a more "elegant" way of writing this?
- name: Install mongodb
yum:
name: "{{ item }}-{{ mongodb_version }}"
state: present
loop:
- mongodb-org-server
- mongodb-org-mongos
- mongodb-org-shell
- mongodb-org-tools
notify: Restart mongodb

Answer 1

To my surprise I didn't find the simplest solution in all the answers, so here it is. Referring to the question title Installing multiple packages in Ansible this is (using the yum module):
- name: Install MongoDB
yum:
name:
- mongodb-org-server
- mongodb-org-mongos
- mongodb-org-shell
- mongodb-org-tools
state: latest
update_cache: true
Or with the apt module:
- name: Install MongoDB
apt:
pkg:
- mongodb-org-server
- mongodb-org-mongos
- mongodb-org-shell
- mongodb-org-tools
state: latest
update_cache: true
Both modules support inline lists!
The second part of your question is how to integrate specific version numbers into the package lists. No problem - simply remove the state: latest (since using specific version numbers together with state: latest would raise errors) and add the version numbers to the package names using a preceding = like this:
- name: Install MongoDB
yum:
name:
- mongodb-org-server=1:3.6.3-0centos1.1
- mongodb-org-mongos=1:3.6.3-0centos1.1
- mongodb-org-shell=1:3.6.3-0centos1.1
- mongodb-org-tools=1:3.6.3-0centos1.1
update_cache: true
You could also optimize further and template the version numbers. In this case don't forget to add quotation marks :)

Answer 2

Make this into an Ansible Role called mongo, resulting in the directory structure:
playbook.yml
roles
|-- mongo
| |-- defaults
| | |-- main.yml
| |
| |-- tasks
| | |-- main.yml
| |
| |-- handlers
| | |-- main.yml
Add the required MongoDB packages and version into the default variables file roles/mongo/defaults/main.yml:
mongo_version: 4.0
mongo_packages:
- mongodb-org-server
- mongodb-org-mongos
- mongodb-org-shell
- mongodb-org-tools
Re-write the task in the roles/mongo/tasks/main.yml file:
- name: Install mongodb
yum:
name: "{{ item }}-{{ mongo_version }}"
state: present
with_items: "{{ mongo_packages }}"
notify: Restart mongodb
Add your handler logic to restart MongoDB in the file roles/mongo/handlers/main.yml.
Write a Playbook called playbook.yml that calls the role.
---
- hosts: all
roles:
- mongo

Answer 3

Some people have mentioned syntax that allows passing a list, but you don't need to special-case your code for apt or yum. Here is the command that uses the generic package manager module:
- name: Install packages
become: yes
package:
name:
- tmux
- rsync
- zsh
- rsync
- wget
state: present
(Or state: latest.) This feature is only documented for Ansible 2.9, so it may be new.

Answer 4

I think this is best way, but as the package names should not be hard coded, it is preferred to keep in vars/main.yml
e.g
mongodb_version: 5
packages:
- "mongodb-org-shell-{{ mongodb_version }}"
- "mongodb-org-server-{{ mongodb_version }}"
Call this inside your playbook as
- name: Install mongodb packages
yum: name={{ item }}
state=latest
with_items: "{{ packages}}"

Answer 5

Now yum module direct accept array of packages like this
vars:
pkgs:
- screen
- rubygems
- ksh
- strace
tasks:
- name: Install pre-requisite packages
yum: name={{ pkgs }} state=installed

Answer 6

A more elegant way, which doesn't keep re-checking each and every package if installed every time the script is run is to use something like this:
In vars/main.yml or similar:
packages_to_install:
- mongodb-org-server
- mongodb-org-mongos
- mongodb-org-shell
- mongodb-org-tools
In tasks/main.yml or similar:
- name: "Get installed packages"
yum:
list: "installed"
register: installed_packages
- name: "Install missing packages"
package:
state: "present"
name: "{{ item }}"
with_items: "{{ packages_to_install | difference(installed_packages | json_query('results[*].name')) }}"
Essentially this checks what is already installed and only installs missing packages. Counter-intuitively this is faster. You can also use dnf instead of yum.