Passing variables to ansible roles - ansible

Question

I have my directory structure as this
└── digitalocean
├── README.md
├── play.yml
└── roles
├── bootstrap_server
│   └── tasks
│   └── main.yml
├── create_new_user
│   └── tasks
│   └── main.yml
├── update
│   └── tasks
│   └── main.yml
└── vimserver
├── files
│   └── vimrc_server
└── tasks
└── main.yml
When I am creating a user under the role create_new_user, I was hard coding the user name as
---
- name: Creating a user named username on the specified web server.
user:
name: username
state: present
shell: /bin/bash
groups: admin
generate_ssh_key: yes
ssh_key_bits: 2048
ssh_key_file: .ssh/id_rsa
- name: Copy .ssh/id_rsa from host box to the remote box for user username
become: true
copy:
src: ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
dest: /home/usernmame/.ssh/authorized_keys
mode: 0600
owner: username
group: username
One way of solving this may be to create a var/main.yml and put the username there. But I wanted something through which I can specify the username at play.yml level. As I am also using the username in the role vimrcserver.
I am calling the roles using play.yml
---
- hosts: testdroplets
roles:
- update
- bootstrap_server
- create_new_user
- vimserver
Would a template work here in this case? Couldn't find much from these SO questions

Answer 1

I got it working by doing a
---
- hosts: testdroplets
roles:
- update
- bootstrap_server
- role: create_new_user
username: username
- role: vimserver
username: username
on play.yml
Although would love to see a different approach then this
Docs: http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_roles.html#roles
EDIT
I finally settled with a directory structure like
$ tree
.
├── README.md
├── ansible.cfg
├── play.yml
└── roles
├── bootstrap_server
│   └── tasks
│   └── main.yml
├── create_new_user
│   ├── defaults
│   │   └── main.yml
│   └── tasks
│   └── main.yml
├── update
│   └── tasks
│   └── main.yml
└── vimserver
├── defaults
│   └── main.yml
├── files
│   └── vimrc_server
└── tasks
└── main.yml
Where I am creating a defaults/main.yml file inside the roles where I need the usage of {{username}}
If someone is interested in the code,
https://github.com/tasdikrahman/ansible-bootstrap-server

Answer 2

You should be able to put username in a vars entry in play.yml.
Variables can also be split out into separate files.
Here is an example which shows both options:
- hosts: all
vars:
favcolor: blue
vars_files:
- /vars/external_vars.yml
tasks:
- name: this is just a placeholder
command: /bin/echo foo
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_variables.html#variable-file-separation
Ansible seems to delight in having different ways to do the same thing, without having either a nice comprehensive reference, or a rationale discussing the full implications of each different approach :). If you didn't remember the above was possible (I'd completely forgotten vars_files), the easiest option to find from the documentation might have been a third way, which is the most sophisticated one.
There's a prominent recommendation for ansible-examples. You can see a group_vars directory, with files which automatically provide values for hosts according to their groups, including the magic all group. The group_vars directory can be placed in the same directory as the playbook.
https://github.com/ansible/ansible-examples/tree/master/lamp_simple

Answer 3

Maybe this is what you want?
---
- hosts: testdroplets
roles:
- update
- bootstrap_server
- { role: create_new_user, username: 'foobar' }
- vimserver
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.5/user_guide/playbooks_reuse_roles.html#using-roles

Answer 4

If you use include_role, variables can be passed like below.
- hosts: all_hosts
tasks:
- include_role:
name: "path/to/role"
vars:
var1: "var2_value"
var2: "var2_value"

Answer 5

Can't you just pass the variable from the command line with the -e parameter? So you can specifiy the variable even before execution. This also results in the strongest variable declaration which always takes precendence (see Variable precendence).
If you want to place it inside your playbook I suggest defining the username with the set_fact directive in the playbook. This variable is then available in all roles and included playbooks as well. Something like:
---
- hosts: testdroplets
pre_tasks:
- set_fact:
username: my_username
roles:
- update
- bootstrap_server
- create_new_user
- vimserver

Answer 6

It is all here: http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_variables.html
while there are already some good answers, but I wanted to add mine because I've done this exact thing.
Here is the role I wrote: https://github.com/jmalacho/ansible-examples/tree/master/roles/users
And, I use hash_merge=true, and ansible's group_vars to make a dictionary of users: keys,groups so that adding a new user by host or by environment, and re-running is easy.
I also wrote up how my team uses group variables for environments once like this: "https://www.coveros.com/ansible-environment-design/"