Ansible Using Custom ssh config File - ansible

Question

I have a custom SSH config file that I typically use as follows
ssh -F ~/.ssh/client_1_config amazon-server-01
Is it possible to assign Ansible to use this config for certain groups? It already has the keys and ports and users all set up. I have this sort of config for multiple clients, and would like to keep the config separate if possible.

Answer 1

Not fully possible. You can set ssh arguments in the ansible.cfg:
[ssh_connection]
ssh_args = -F ~/.ssh/client_1_config amazon-server-01
Unfortunately it is not possible to define this per group, inventory or anything else specific.

Answer 2

I believe you can achieve what you want like this in your inventory:
[group1]
server1
[group2]
server2
[group1:vars]
ansible_ssh_user=vagrant
ansible_ssh_common_args='-F ssh1.cfg'
[group2:vars]
ansible_ssh_user=vagrant
ansible_ssh_common_args='-F ssh2.cfg'
You can then be as creative as you want and construct SSH config files such as this:
$ cat ssh1.cfg
Host server1
HostName 192.168.1.1
User someuser
Port 22
IdentityFile /path/to/id_rsa
References
Working with Inventory
OpenSSH Config File Examples

Answer 3

With Ansible 2, you can set a ProxyCommand in the ansible_ssh_common_args inventory variable. Any arguments specified in this variable are added to the sftp/scp/ssh command line when connecting to the relevant host(s). Consider the following inventory group:
[gatewayed]
foo ansible_host=192.0.2.1
bar ansible_host=192.0.2.2
You can create group_vars/gatewayed.yml with the following contents:
ansible_ssh_common_args: '-o ProxyCommand="ssh -W %h:%p -q user#gateway.example.com"'
and do the trick...
You can find further information in: http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/faq.html

Answer 4

Another way,
assuming you have associated ssh key identity files in configuration groupings for various servers like I do in the ~/.ssh/config file. If you have a bunch of entries like this one.
Host wholewideworld
Hostname 204.8.19.16
port 22
User why_me
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
PubKeyAuthentication yes
IdentitiesOnly yes
they work like
ssh wholewideworld
To run ansible adhock commands is run
eval $(ssh-agent -s)
ssh-add ~/.ssh/*rsa
output will be like:
Enter passphrase for /home/why-me/.ssh/id_rsa:
Identity added: /home/why-me/.ssh/id_rsa (/home/why-me/.ssh/id_rsa)
now you should be able to include wholewideworld in your ~/ansible-hosts
after you put in the host alias from the config file, it works to just run
ansible all -ping
output:
127.0.0.1 | SUCCESS => {
"changed": false,
"ping": "pong"
}
wholewideworld | SUCCESS => {
"changed": false,
"ping": "pong"
}