How to reference a variable in ansible playbook? - ansible

I'm new to ansible. I can't get the answer in ansible website.
How to reference a variable in ansible playbook? eg:
- name: Set schedulability
hosts: oo_first_master
vars:
install_nodes: "{{ hostvars
| oo_select_keys(groups['oo_nodes_to_config'])
| oo_collect('open.common.hostname') }}"
install_node_vars: "{{ hostvars | oo_select_keys(groups['oo_nodes_to_config']) }}"
Seen "install_nodes" refered to like this:
- name: Wait for Node Registration
command: >
{{ install.common.client_binary }} get node {{ item | lower }}
register: omd_get_node
until: omd_get_node.rc == 0
retries: 20
delay: 5
changed_when: false
with_items: install_nodes
I think reference a variable should be involed with "{{ }}" in ansible playbook. But it's referenced directly. How many way to reference variables in ansible?
Regards

when, failed_when, changed_when, with_items, with_dict, etc expect a variable, so you don't have to use {{ }}, in all other cases use the double curly brackets.

Related

ansible variables usage - ansible_hostname or {{ ansible_hostname }}

I am new to ansible. What is the correct to call ansible variables? Here are the 3 playbooks, playbook 1 uses "{{ ansible_hostname }}", however, playbook 2 and 3 uses "ansible_hostname" directly. What are the differences? Thanks!
Playbook 1:
tasks:
- name: Jinja2 template
template:
src: template.j2
dest: "/tmp/{{ ansible_hostname }}_template.out"
trim_blocks: true
mode: 0644
Playbook 2:
tasks:
- name: Ansible Jinja2 if
debug:
msg: >
--== Ansible Jinja2 if statement ==--
{# If the hostname is ubuntu-c, include a message -#}
{% if ansible_hostname == "ubuntu-c" -%}
This is ubuntu-c
{% endif %}
Playbook 3:
tasks:
- name: Exploring register
command: hostname -s
when:
- ansible_distribution == "CentOS"
- ansible_distribution_major_version | int >= 8
register: command_register
playbook 1 uses "{{ ansible_hostname }}", however, playbook 2 uses "ansible_hostname"
That's not entirely correct. Both playbooks use the variable name ansible_hostname inside a Jinja templating context.
In the first playbook, it's simple variable substitution, so we use the {{ ... }} markers.
In the second playbook, it's being used in a control expression, so we use the {% ... %} markers.
In the third playbook, you're looking at the clauses of a when expression. From the documentation:
The when clause is a raw Jinja2 expression without double curly braces...
You can read more about Jinja syntax here.

Ansible Registers - Dynamic naming

I am trying to use a register in Ansible playbook to store my output. Below is the code which i am using.
I have tried below code
- name: Check if Service Exists
stat: path=/etc/init.d/{{ item }}
register: {{ item }}_service_status
with_items:
- XXX
- YYY
- ZZZ
I need different outputs to be stored in different register variables based on the items as mentioned in the code. It is failing and not able to proceed. Any help would be appreciated.
Updated answer
I think you need to put quotes around it:
register: "{{ item }}_service_status"
Or you can use set_fact (1, 2, 3, 4)
register all the output to a single static variable output and then use a loop to iteratively build a new variable service_status (a list) by looping over each item in the static variable output
- name: Check if Service Exists
stat: path=/etc/init.d/{{ item }}
register: output
with_items:
- XXX
- YYY
- ZZZ
- name: Setting fact using output of loop
set_fact:
service_status:
- rc: "{{ item.rc }}"
stdout: "{{ item.stdout }}"
id: "{{ item.id }}"
with_items:
- "{{ output }}"
- debug:
msg: "ID and stdout: {{ item.id }} - {{ item.stdout }}"
with_items:
- "{{ service_status }}"
Initial Answer
IIUC, this link from the Ansible docs shows how to use register inside a loop (see another example in this SO post).
A couple of points
it may be more convenient to assign the list (XXX, YYY, ZZZ) to a separate variable (eg. 1, 2)
I don't know if this is part of the problem, but with_items is no longer the recommended approach to loop over a variable: instead use loop - see here for an example
vars:
items:
- XXX
- YYY
- ZZZ
- name: Check if Service Exists
stat: path=/etc/init.d/{{ item }}
register: service_status
loop: "{{ items|flatten(levels=1) }}"
- name: Show the return code and stdout
debug:
msg: "Cmd {{ item.cmd }}, return code {{ item.rc }}, stdout {{ item.stdout }}"
when: item.rc != 0
with_items: "{{ service_status.results }}"

How to dynamically create an ansible list out of hostvars?

I have a few variables defined for every host. Like...
hosts:
- hostA:
vars:
self_ip: "192.168.1.10"
self_port: "8001"
- hostB:
vars:
self_ip: "192.168.1.11"
self_port: "8002"
Inside one of the roles, I want to define a variable, which is a combination of few host variables. For example...
all_endpoints: 192.168.1.10:8001,192.168.1.11:8002
How can I do this?
I tried using Jinja2 for loops like below:
rs_members:
"{% for host in groups['all_hosts'] %}
- {{hostvars[host]['self_ip']}}:{{hostvars[host]['self_port']}}
{% endfor %}"
This seems to be creating a string. Not a list.
Can someone tell me what is wrong? And is there a way to use ansible filters to achieve this?
- set_fact:
all_endpoints: "{{ hosts|json_query('[].vars.[self_ip, self_port]') }}"
- set_fact:
touples: "{{ touples|default([]) + [ item.0 + ':' + item.1 ] }}"
loop: "{{ all_endpoints }}"
- debug:
var: touples
gives
"touples": [
"192.168.1.10:8001",
"192.168.1.11:8002"
]

Ansible: Access facts set by set_fact

I need to be able to set variables using tasks in Ansible. I use set_fact for this, but cannot seem to access the fact I set with this. What is wrong with the code below:
- name: kludge1
set_fact: fake_y = "{{ [] }}"
- name: Loop
debug:
msg: "{{ item }}"
with_items: "{{ fake_y }}"
You have spaces before and after =...
- name: kludge1
set_fact: fake_y="{{ [] }}"
Avoid var= shortcut syntax. Use original YAML syntax instead, it gives less errors:
- name: kludge1
set_fact:
fake_y: "{{ [] }}"

Ansible with_items if item is defined

Ansible 1.9.4.
The script should execute some task only on hosts where some variable is defined. It works fine normally, but it doesn't work with the with_items statement.
- debug: var=symlinks
when: symlinks is defined
- name: Create other symlinks
file: src={{ item.src }} dest={{ item.dest }} state=link
with_items: "{{ symlinks }}"
when: symlinks is defined
But I get:
TASK: [app/symlinks | debug var=symlinks] *********************
skipping: [another-host-yet]
TASK: [app/symlinks | Create other symlinks] ******************
fatal: [another-host-yet] => with_items expects a list or a set
Maybe I am doing something wrong?
with_items: "{{ symlinks | default([]) }}"
The reason for this behavior is conditions work differently inside loops. If a loop was defined the condition is evaluated for every item while iterating over the items. But the loop itself requires a valid list.
This is also mentioned in the docs:
Note that when combining when with with_items (see Loops), be aware that the when statement is processed separately for each item. This is by design:
tasks:
- command: echo {{ item }}
with_items: [ 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 ]
when: item > 5
I think this is a bad design choice and for this functionality they better should have introduced something like with_when.
As you have already figured out yourself, you can default to an empty list.
with_items: "{{ symlinks | default([]) }}"
Finally if the list is dynamically loaded from a var, say x, use:
with_items: "{{ symlinks[x|default('')] | default([])}}"
This will default to an empty list when 'x' is undefined
Accordingly, fall back to an empty dict with default({}):
# service_facts skips, then dict2items fails?
with_dict: "{{ ansible_facts.services|default({})|dict2items|selectattr('key', 'match', '[^#]+#.+\\.service')|list|items2dict }}"

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