CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-3.xansible
Bryant
Bryant

Reputation: 41

Ansible - How can I use an IP Address as a host without using the inventory file?

I'm making a playbook that deploys a VM from a template, then collects the new IP Address gotten from DHCP and then automatically updates the new VM. I have gotten so far that I have a variable with the IP Address I want to use for the update play. I supply it as hosts: variablename

Only this isn't working and I get the error: [WARNING]: Could not match supplied host pattern, ignoring: 172.16.0.33.

I searched around and found that I should use a hosts patterns with an alias, but I couldn't get the syntax right and after trying I got this error:

**ERROR! Unexpected Exception, this is probably a bug: unhashable type: 'AnsibleMapping'
the full traceback was:
 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/ansible-playbook", line 123, in <module>
    exit_code = cli.run()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/ansible/cli/playbook.py", line 127, in run
    results = pbex.run()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/ansible/executor/playbook_executor.py", line 116, in run
    all_vars = self._variable_manager.get_vars(play=play)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/ansible/vars/manager.py", line 171, in get_vars
    magic_variables = self._get_magic_variables(
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/ansible/vars/manager.py", line 482, in _get_magic_variables
    _hosts_all = [h.name for h in self._inventory.get_hosts(pattern=pattern, ignore_restrictions=True)]
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/ansible/inventory/manager.py", line 374, in get_hosts
    if pattern_hash not in self._hosts_patterns_cache:
TypeError: unhashable type: 'AnsibleMapping'**

I followed the same syntax as https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/intro_patterns.html [Limitations of patterns] and https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/intro_inventory.html#inventory-aliases

My testcode that got the error above. This is not the whole playbook, but it's irrelevant to the question. The first error is when I just use an IP for hosts:

- name: Update all packages using apt
  hosts:
    host1:
      #This was also tried seperately
      #ansible_port: 5555
      #ansible_host: 172.16.0.33
      host: 172.16.0.33
  become: yes
  remote_user: user01
  tasks:
    - name: Ansible Update Cache and Upgrade all Packages
      register: updatesys
      apt:
              name: "*"
              state: latest
              update_cache: yes

Is this not how you do it? Can someone elaborate? How can I just use an IP to connect to my hosts and execute commands without making an inventory file? I can't do this due to the nature of the playbook. Everytime it makes new VM's with new names and IP. I can't manually add / delete them.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3534

Answers (1)

Unsel
Unsel

Reputation: 363

Actually, you can create temporary inventory files on the go with the add_host module. Below you can see an implementation I've used while I was working with an API to create virtual machines and add them to the inventory to operate on them in the same playbook.

- name: Create  vm
  hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - name: An API call to get information about the vm you just created
      uri:
        url: API endpoint
        method: GET
      register: mongo_server

    - name: Add the host to the inventory
      add_host:
        args: "ssh-common-args='-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no'"
        name: "{{mongo_server.name}}"
        groups: "A"
        ansible_ssh_user: "{{mongo_server.user}}"
        ansible_ssh_pass:  "{{mongo_server.pass}}"
        public_ip_addr: "{{mongo_server.ip_addr}}"
        
- name: Connect A and use B's information in it
  hosts: A
  tasks:
    - name: Example task
      debug:
         msg: "randomtext"

Upvotes: 6

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