CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ansible
Red Cricket
Red Cricket

Reputation: 10470

Understanding group_vars

I am having a hard time understand how to group_vars. I am working with a large and confusing ansible code base. I want to test what I am doing on a centos docker container that I run locally on my laptop. I can access this container like so:

$ ansible all -i,localhost -m ping -o --key-file=~/.ssh/id_rsa -u root
...
localhost | SUCCESS => {"ansible_facts": {"discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python"}, "changed": false, "ping": "pong"}

I want to test a role that will place a file on the container.

- name: enable_systemd | create RALM service scripts
  template:
    src: ralm.service.j2
    dest: /etc/systemd/system/ralm-{{ item }}.service
    mode: '0644'
  with_items: "{{ ralm_instances }}"
  when: servertype != 'zc'

The template references a variable, BBS_HOME.

I run my playbook like so:

$ ansible-playbook -i staging_hosts -l localhost -b \
> --key-file=~/.ssh/id_rsa -u root playbooks/real-123.yml \
> -e"stype=rrm" -e"ralm_instances=1"

localhost is in this inventory file:

$ grep -sr -B1 localhost staging_hosts
staging_hosts/staging_hosts-[real_123]
staging_hosts/staging_hosts:localhost

And I have a this file ...

$ grep BBS_HOME group_vars/real_123
BBS_HOME: /opt/bbs

But when I run my playbook I get this output:

PLAY [all] *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]

TASK [../roles/ralm : enable_systemd | remove existing RALM service files] *************************************************************************************************************************
skipping: [localhost]

TASK [../roles/ralm : enable_systemd | create RALM service scripts] ********************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => (item=1)

TASK [../roles/ralm : enable_systemd | create RALM service environment conf file] ******************************************************************************************************************
An exception occurred during task execution. To see the full traceback, use -vvv. The error was: AnsibleUndefinedVariable: 'BBS_HOME' is undefined
failed: [localhost] (item=1) => {"ansible_loop_var": "item", "changed": false, "item": "1", "msg": "AnsibleUndefinedVariable: 'BBS_HOME' is undefined"}

PLAY RECAP *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=2    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=1    skipped=1    rescued=0    ignored=0

Yet when I do this ...

$ ansible all -i staging_hosts -l localhost -m debug -a "var=hostvars[inventory_hostname]" | head

... I can see my group_vars and values:

localhost | SUCCESS => {
    "hostvars[inventory_hostname]": {
        "MULTI_RZ": 1,
        "BBS_HOME": "/opt/bbs",
        "STATUS": 1,
        ...

Here's my ansible version info:

$ ansible --version
ansible [core 2.11.6]
  config file = None
  configured module search path = [u'/Users/redcrik/.ansible/plugins/modules', u'/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /Users/redcrik/DOCKER/ANSIBLE/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /Users/redcrik/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /Users/redcrik/DOCKER/ANSIBLE/venv/bin/ansible
  python version = 2.7.16 (default, Aug 30 2021, 14:43:11) [GCC Apple LLVM 12.0.5 (clang-1205.0.19.59.6) [+internal-os, ptrauth-isa=deploy
  jinja version = 2.11.3
  libyaml = True

Upvotes: 1

Views: 6526

Answers (1)

Rickkwa
Rickkwa

Reputation: 2291

Does your file structure from where you run the ansible-playbook command look like this?

staging_hosts/
    staging_hosts
group_vars/
    real_123
playbooks/
    real-123.yml

When running with ansible-playbook, it's looking for the group_vars folder in the same directory as the playbook and/or the inventory. When you run the ansible command, it looks for the group_vars folder in the current working directory and the inventory.

If you move your group_vars into your inventory folder, it should work in both cases.

staging_hosts/
    staging_hosts
    group_vars/
        real_123
playbooks/
    real-123.yml

Upvotes: 2

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