Ansible Alternative directory structure requires paths

Question

I am trying to create the Alternative Directory Layout from the Ansible docs site best practices section.

Following this guidance, here is the layout that I have created inside ~/ansible_proj/windows_setup (windows_setup is a Python virtual environment):

.venv
inventories/
   production/
      hosts
      group_vars/
         windows
            windows.yml
            vault

windows_configure.yml

roles/
    role1/
    role2/
    role3/
    role4/

.gitignore # this contains 1 line produced by: echo 'vault' >> .gitignore

When I try to run the playbook windows_configure.yml, as suggested here (see 1st example), using

$ (.venv) cd ~/ansible_proj/windows_setup
$ (.venv) user@sname: ~/ansible_proj/windows_setup$ ansible-playbook
                      -i production windows_configure.yml --ask-vault-pass

the error is

Unable to parse /.../production as an inventory source

production hosts list is empty, only localhost is available

I must indicate the path to the hosts file instead like:

$ (.venv) user@sname: ~/ansible_proj/windows_setup$ ansible-playbook
                       -i inventories/production/hosts windows_configure.yml --ask-vault-pass

in order for this to run.

Q1. How can I use the Alternative Directory Layout to run playbooks by using production (as the docs suggest) instead of inventories/production/hosts?

In the same directory structure, if I place windows_configure.yml inside playbooks/, and run with:

$ (.venv) user@sname: ~/ansible_proj/windows_setup$ ansible-playbook
                      -i inventories/production/hosts playbooks/windows_configure.yml
                      --ask-vault-pass

then I get this error

ERROR: the role 'role1' was not found in /.../playbooks/roles:/.../playbooks

Q2. In this Alternative Directory Structure, is it possible to place all playbooks inside a playbooks directory?

EDIT

I have tried adding ansible.cfg to the current directory (~/ansible_proj/windows_setup) (which also contains the playbook windows_configure.yml. Here is ansible.cfg:

[defaults]
inventory  = ~/ansible_proj/windows_setup/inventories/production
roles_path = ~/ansible_proj/windows_setup

When I run

$ (.venv) cd ~/ansible_proj/windows_setup
$ (.venv) user@sname: ~/ansible_proj/windows_setup$ ansible-playbook
                      -i production windows_configure.yml --ask-vault-pass

the same error appears

Unable to parse /.../production as an inventory source

production hosts list is empty, only localhost is available

edesz · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-01T18:22:22.763

For Q1. only:

It appears this question is discussed in this github issue - the solution is to use inventories/production. I tested this (without any ansible.cfg file in the current directory) and it worked:

$ (.venv) user@sname: ~/ansible_proj/windows_setup$ ansible-playbook
                      -i inventories/production windows_configure.yml --ask-vault-pass

For Q2.:

It looks like symbolic links might be one approach - I didn't want to do this so I left the playbook in the root project directory and not within a playbooks directory. However, some symbolic link based solutions are here: 1, 2. I'm not sure if there is another way to resolve this problem.

Ansible Alternative directory structure requires paths

1 Answers1