Concat multiple variables and strings in ansible playbook - ansible

I'm trying multiple concatenation when preforming with_items for the destination section.
Right now it looks like this:
- name: create app except+lookup
copy: content="" dest="{{ dir.comp ~ '/config/con2dd/' ~ item.name ~ 'File.txt' }}" force=no group=devops owner=devops mode: 0755
with_items:
...
I get:
We could be wrong, but this one looks like it might be an issue with
missing quotes. Always quote template expression brackets when they
start a value. For instance:
with_items:
- {{ foo }}
Should be written as:
with_items:
- "{{ foo }}"
Tried couple of approaches but none resulted something that's working.
Is it possible to concat the variables with the strings?

Don't mix pure YAML and key=value syntaxes for parameters. And always use YAML syntax for complex arguments:
- name: create app except+lookup
copy:
content: ""
dest: "{{ dir.comp }}/config/con2dd/{{ item.name }}File.txt"
force: no
group: devops
owner: devops
mode: 0755
with_items:
...

You are not quoting the value associated with the key copy. For that to happen the first character has to be double (or single) quote. The example, given in the feedback, does this correctly, but is not explicit about it. Once a scalar start with a non-quote (yours start with the c from content quotes occurring in the scalar will no longer have a special meaning.
Because of a bug in the parser that Ansible uses, the : (colon space) in that scalar (mode: 0755) causes trouble, you should double quote the whole scalar and escape the double quotes that occur within it:
copy: "content=\"\" dest=\"{{ dir.comp ~ '/config/con2dd/' ~ item.name ~ 'File.txt' }}\" force=no group=devops owner=devops mode: 0755"
or alternatively use single quotes (which have different escape rules:
copy: 'content="" dest="{{ dir.comp ~ ''/config/con2dd/'' ~ item.name ~ ''File.txt'' }}" force=no group=devops owner=devops mode: 0755'
You can test scalars yourself on this online YAML parser, it has the same bug as what causes Ansible not to parse your YAML correctly.
This parser, handles the in scalar : correctly and will not produce an error with your input (but it has other problems).

Related

Strange behavior in Ansible when using `to_nice_yaml` filter

I have an ansible playbook, which first initializes a fact using set_fact, and then a task that consumes the fact and generates a YAML file from it.
The playbook looks like this
- name: Test yaml output
hosts: localhost
become: true
tasks:
- name: set config
set_fact:
config:
A12345: '00000000000000000000000087895423'
A12352: '00000000000000000000000087565857'
A12353: '00000000000000000000000031200527'
- name : gen yaml file
copy:
dest: "a.yaml"
content: "{{ config | to_nice_yaml }}"
Actual Output
When I run the playbook, the output in a.yaml is
A12345: 00000000000000000000000087895423
A12352: 00000000000000000000000087565857
A12353: '00000000000000000000000031200527'
Notice only the last line has the value in quotes
Expected Output
The expected output is
A12345: '00000000000000000000000087895423'
A12352: '00000000000000000000000087565857'
A12353: '00000000000000000000000031200527'
All values should be quoted.
I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why only the last line has the value printed in single-quotes.
I've tried this with Ansible version 2.7.7, and version 2.11.12, both running against Python 3.7.3. The behavior is the same.
It's because 031200527 is an octal number, whereas 087895423 is not, thus, the octal scalar needs quoting but the other values do not because the leading zeros are interpreted in yaml exactly the same way 00hello would be -- just the ascii 0 followed by other ascii characters
If it really bothers you that much, and having quoted scalars is obligatory for some reason, to_nice_yaml accepts the same kwargs as does pyyaml.dump:
- debug:
msg: '{{ thing | to_nice_yaml(default_style=quote) }}'
vars:
quote: "'"
thing:
A1234: '008123'
A2345: '003123'
which in this case will also quote the keys, but unconditionally quotes the scalars

How to access an ansible block variable in a file from the same block

I define a yml variable files for ansible with the following structure:
appserver:
root_directory: C:\app
config_directory: '{{ root_directory }}\config'
it seems the second variable config_directory cannot be interpreted correctly, I get a VARIABLE NOT FOUND ERROR.
I tried with:
appserver:
root_directory: C:\app
config_directory: '{{ appserver.root_directory }}\config'
It does not work either, I have a very long trace of error, the most interesting part is :
recursive loop detected in template string:{{ appserver.root_directory }}\config
When I use double quotes instead of simple quotes,
appserver:
root_directory: C:\app
config_directory: "{{ appserver.root_directory }}\config"
I get the following error:
The offending line appears to be:
app_root: D:\WynsureEnvironments\Application
wynsure_root: "{{ appserver.root_directory }}\config"
^ here
We could be wrong, but this one looks like it might be an issue with
missing quotes. Always quote template expression brackets when they
start a value. For instance:
with_items:
- {{ foo }}
Should be written as:
with_items:
- "{{ foo }}"
When using variable blocks, how can I reuse variables to assign new variables?
Thanks!
You cannot use such a recursive jinja2 variable declaration in ansible.
Here are 2 (non exhaustive list) alternative solutions:
Don't use a hash. Prepend your vars names. You will typically find this type of naming conventions in e.g. reusable roles on ansible galaxy
appserver_root_directory: C:\app
appserver_config_directory: '{{ appserver_root_directory }}\config'
If you really need a hash of this kind, declare a "private" variable outside of your hash and reuse it inside.
_appserver_root: C:\app
appserver:
root_directory: "{{ _appserver_root }}"
config_directory: "{{ _appserver_root }}\config"

is_file produces a syntax error in Ansible

I use Ansible 2.3.2.0 for my project. In this project, I have a task using is_file test:
- name: Create repository.ini file
template: src="{{ playbook_dir }}/../../../repository.ini" dest="/{{ repository_dir }}/repository.ini"
when: "{{ playbook_dir }}/../../..//repository.ini"|is_file
This task produces the following error:
The offending line appears to be:
template: src="{{ playbook_dir }}/../../../repository.ini" dest="/{{ jse_repository_dir }}/repository.ini"
when: "{{ playbook_dir }}/../../../repository.ini"|is_file
^ here
We could be wrong, but this one looks like it might be an issue with
missing quotes. Always quote template expression brackets when they
start a value. For instance:
. . . .
I tried everything I could with no avail.
When you start a YAML key value with a quote, you must quote the whole value, so if there are any other strings inside, you should use a different quotation mark (e.g., single quote + double quote).
Ansible expects the value of when to be a Jinja2 statement, so there is no need to use {{ inside.
Because 2. that you need to use Jinja2 syntax for string concatenation variable + 'string'.
Combined, your conditional should be:
when: "(playbook_dir+'/../../../repository.ini')|is_file"

How to pass variable in command module in ansible

i am using folloing task in YAMl file.
- name: Run deployment of RWI Artifact
command: "{{ deploy_script }} /home/scripts/lite /application/ a-CL '--Home=/opt/AppServer --appClassLoaderMode=abc'"
but typically , i am getting following error
We could be wrong, but this one looks like it might be an issue with
missing quotes. Always quote template expression brackets when they
start a value. For instance:
with_items:
- {{ foo }}
Should be written as:
with_items:
- "{{ foo }}"
i tried all combination but dont know how to put those quotes correctly.
please suggest
In YAML if you start string with quote, it is considered as quoted string, so you must end the string with the same quote.
Try:
- name: Run deployment of RWI Artifact
command: "{{ deploy_script }} /home/scripts/lite /application/ a-CL '--Home=/opt/AppServer --appClassLoaderMode=abc'"
I assume that deploy_script has no spaces.

Ansible escaping a string issue on mac vs ubuntu?

With the following code:
- name: Add the gii config for main.php on staging
blockinfile:
dest: "{{ www_path }}/protected/config/main.php"
marker: "//Gii"
insertafter: "\'modules\'=>array\\("
block: "{{ gii_content }}"
I'm getting a syntax error on OSX:
ERROR! Syntax Error while loading YAML.
The offending line appears to be:
marker: "//Gii"
insertafter: "\'modules\'=>array\\("
^ here
Yet on ubuntu, no such issue and the playbook runs seamlessly. Any ideas?
If you run this through a YAML parser it will tell you it discovered an unknown escape character, so OS X is right there. What is the purpose of \'? If the idea was to match that string and the backslash appears in the file like this, you should put two backslashes there:
- name: Add the gii config for main.php on staging
blockinfile:
dest: "{{ www_path }}/protected/config/main.php"
marker: "//Gii"
insertafter: "\\'modules\\'=>array\\("
block: "{{ gii_content }}"
If there are two backslashes right after array you would need to have 4 of them there, just for escaping. Though since insertafter takes a regular expression and ( has a special meaning in regular expressions, it might be necessary to actually put 6 of them there.
- name: Add the gii config for main.php on staging
blockinfile:
dest: "{{ www_path }}/protected/config/main.php"
marker: "//Gii"
insertafter: "\\'modules\\'=>array\\\\\\("
block: "{{ gii_content }}"

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