CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ansible
Flux
Flux

Reputation: 10910

Ansible run same role multiple times using different variable files

Supose I have a server that is used to serve one static website (e.g. catpics.com). Using Ansible, I have a base role (used to set up firewall, time, user accounts, etc.), a letsencrypt role (gets TLS certificates for a website), and a webserver role (creates web root directory for a website).

Now I want to host another website (e.g. snakepics.com) on this same server. With this new addition, the base role still needs to be run once, but the letsencrypt and webserver roles now need to be run twice. At this point, I have two variable files:

vars/catpics.com:

---
domain_name: catpics.com
# and other variables...
...

vars/snakepics.com:

---
domain_name: snakepics.com
# and other variables...
...

Now that I have these two variable files, how do I run both the letsencrypt and webserver roles twice? (once using the vars/catpics.com variables file, and once using the vars/snakepics.com variables file)

Upvotes: 3

Views: 3315

Answers (1)

mewc
mewc

Reputation: 1447

You can use different Host Groups to make it run for each type and achieve your goal. There are 2 types of variables for hosts.

  • Host Variable which is specific to that individual host that is within a group
  • Group Variable which is for that whole host group

inventory / hosts file.

[catpics]
catpics.com http_port=301
morecatpics.com http_port=80

[snakepics]
snakepics.com
moresnakepics.com

note the http_port= is a Host Variable that is inline with the hostname declaration, seperated by a space

then in that same file, using the host:vars naming format, you define the Group Variables which is for the whole group. So all snakepics hosts will have those variables and all catpics hosts will have theirs, but keeping their individual Host Variables ie. http_port= 

[snakepics:vars]
FQDN= https://www.snake.com
VAR2= something2

[catpics:vars]
FQDN= https://www.cat.com
VAR2= something2

So great, now we've got the hosts setup, we can define what roles are run for each host. The same role will be run

- hosts: catpics
  roles:
      - letsencrypt
      - webserver

- hosts: snakepics
  roles:
      - letsencrypt
      - webserver

or in this case, hosts could simply look like - hosts: all and it will get the vars corresponding to each type of host (snake and cat).

To call the variables is like any other ansible variable fetch {{ variable_name }} when running a task in a role:

-name: Show how variables like this work
domain_name: "{{ FQDN }}"
some_other_task_variable: "{{VAR2}}"

For reference: Host and Group variables

Now that will solve your issue in the quickest way. The current best practice for using group and host variables uses a seperate file in the group_vars/*role_name_file* directory to automatically fetch all the variables for each Host Group

Upvotes: 1

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