CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ansible
coolnodje
coolnodje

Reputation: 807

Ansible2.4 playbook Variable precedence when using import_playbook

I'm trying to reuse generic playbooks so that they can be played within any larger scenario.

Think a build-basic-server playbook (which is composed of roles) that can be run on different cloud provider while overriding the generic playbook variables.

group_vars/
  all
playbooks/
  build-basic-server/
    group_vars/
      all
    roles/
      firewall/
      web/
      ...
    build.yml 
roles/
  my-cloud-provider/ or container/
main.yml (with - import_playbook: playbooks/build-basic-server/build.yml)

This works well, but my trouble is that I can't rely on the main group_vars/all to take precedence over the playbooks/build-basic-server/group_vars/all.

I need the main group_vars/all to override the playbook one so that I can keep the playbook generic and testable with test variables values (Otherwise I'd have to a specific branch of the playbook per usage and would need to merge any modification to each branch...).

Is there any way to make this main group_vars/all take precedence over everything? Do you have any other way to implement such a use case?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 234

Answers (1)

coolnodje
coolnodje

Reputation: 807

Using this additional folder for variables

inventory/
  group_vars/
    all

does override values in

playbooks/
  build-basic-server/
    group_vars/
      all

for 

playbooks/
  build-basic-server/
    build.xml

but not for root

main.yml

This is equivalent to switching from Play to Host Variable Scope

So that's one possible solution to the stated problem.

Upvotes: 1

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