Ansible - Access inventory alias - ansible

Question

Having an inventory file like:
[my_hosts]
my_host ansible_ssh_host=123.123.123.123
my_host2 ansible_ssh_host=234.234.234.234
I want to gather some debug information in my templates.
How do I acces the alias variable in a playbook/template?
I.e.:
debug: msg=Myhost is {{ ansible_host_alias }}
# Myhost is my_host
# Myhost is myhost2
I tried to gather facts using ansible -m setup my_host . The variables ansible_hostname , HOSTNAME and HOST contain the machine's hostname, i.e. echo $HOSTNAME which differs from my ansible alias.

Answer 1

The variable I was searching for is a built in feature: inventory_hostname
Ansible documentation about inventory_hostname and inventory_hostname_short is found from chapter Magic Variables, and How To Access Information About Other Hosts.
Original question: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/ansible-project/Oa5YXjHecIw

Answer 2

You can use the inventory_hostname special variable.
Documentation: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/special_variables.html
Alternatively,
You can just simply use {{ ansible_ssh_host }} For example:
Inventory:
[my_hosts]
my_host ansible_ssh_host=127.0.0.1 my_host_alias=my_host
Playbook:
---
- name: My Good playbook
user: ubuntu
hosts: all
tasks:
- name: My message
debug: msg="Myhost is {{ ansible_ssh_host }}"
- name: My message bogus
debug: msg="My host alias is {{ my_host_alias }}"
Execution:
$ ansible-playbook -i inventory play.yml
PLAY [My Good playbook] *******************************************************
GATHERING FACTS ***************************************************************
ok: [my_host]
TASK: [My message] ************************************************************
ok: [my_host] => {
"msg": "Myhost is 127.0.0.1"
}
TASK: [My message bogus] ******************************************************
ok: [my_host] => {
"msg": "My host alias is my_host"
}
PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
my_host : ok=3 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0