CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ansible
alexs333
alexs333

Reputation: 12573

Ansible - accessing local environment variables

I wonder if there is a way for Ansible to access local environment variables.

The documentation references accessing variable on the target machine:

{{ lookup('env', 'SOMEVAR') }}

Is there a way to access environment variables on the source machine?

Upvotes: 82

Views: 119264

Answers (4)

YosSaL
YosSaL

Reputation: 1047

Use delegate_to to run it on any machine you want:

- name: get running ansible user
  ansible.builtin.set_fact:
    local_ansible_user: "{{ lookup('env', 'USER') }}"
  delegate_to: localhost

Upvotes: 2

Rico
Rico

Reputation: 61551

Those variables are in the management machine I suppose source machine in your case.

Check this: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/collections/ansible/builtin/env_lookup.html

Basically, if you just need to access existing variables, use the ‘env’ lookup plugin. For example, to access the value of the HOME environment variable on management machine:`

Now, if you need to access it in the remote machine you can just run your ansible script locally in the remote machine. Or you could just the ansible facts variables. If it's not in the ansible facts you can just run a shell command to get it.

Upvotes: 8

Quyen Nguyen Tuan
Quyen Nguyen Tuan

Reputation: 1675

Use ansible lookup:

- set_fact: env_var="{{ lookup('env','ENV_VAR') }}"

Upvotes: 32

grilix
grilix

Reputation: 5341

I have a Linux vm running on osx, and for me:

lookup('env', 'HOME') returns "/Users/Gonzalo" (the HOME variable from osx), while ansible_env.HOME returns "/root" (the HOME variable from the vm).

Worth to mention, that ansible_env.VAR fails if the variable does not exists, while lookup('env', 'VAR') does not fail.

Upvotes: 121

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