79

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?

infused
  • 24,000
  • 13
  • 68
  • 78
alexs333
  • 12,143
  • 11
  • 51
  • 89

4 Answers4

117

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.

grilix
  • 5,211
  • 5
  • 33
  • 34
  • 8
    It's worth mentioning that, if the variable does not exist, the lookup appears to return an empty string. This is useful when the existence of a var indicates a special build env (like a Travis CI build, or a docker container) – EvanK Sep 03 '14 at 15:37
  • It's also worth mentioning that the assumption of OP is wrong. `{{ lookup('env', 'SOMEVAR') }}` will already return the env variables of the Ansible controller. – stackprotector May 26 '23 at 13:55
33

Use ansible lookup:

- set_fact: env_var="{{ lookup('env','ENV_VAR') }}"
Andrew Regan
  • 5,087
  • 6
  • 37
  • 73
Quyen Nguyen Tuan
  • 1,677
  • 17
  • 23
8

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.

Rico
  • 58,485
  • 12
  • 111
  • 141
1

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
YosSaL
  • 667
  • 6
  • 15