Can ansible variables be used to declare hosts in a playbook?

Question

I have a playbook in the format below:

---
- hosts: myIP
  tasks:
  - name: Install a yum package in Ansible example
    yum:
      name: ThePackageIWantToInstall
      state: present

where myIP and ThePackageIWantToInstall are variables.

When the job template runs, I would like the user in the extra variables popup to be able to go with:

myIP = 192.168.1.1
ThePackageIWantToInstall = nano

As the documentation doesn't provide an example of supplying a variable via a job template, is this possible?

Paul Hodges · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-25T13:33:45.327

2

Yes.

- name: Do The Thing
  hosts: "{{ foo }}"
  roles:
   - "{{ role }}"

Need mustaches and quotes.

to run from popup

(I don't use this, but it was suggested as an edit, thanks...)

foo: value

edited Jul 25 '18 at 13:33

answered Jul 25 '18 at 13:23

Paul Hodges

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right and then when I assign them in the extra variables pop up is it litterally -foo: 192.188.1.1? – turtleduck2018 Jul 25 '18 at 13:27
I executed the test with `ansible-playbook -i Jenkins.sh site.yml --extra-vars='foo=each bar=test'` (I use a dynamic hosts script, but that's not relevant here.) I don't use the popup. Refer to the documentation for that and do some testing to get the syntax right. – Paul Hodges Jul 25 '18 at 13:29

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 03 '18 at 09:19

I have achieved similar thing with add_hosts. Here iam not installing package but creating file with name passed from command line. Any number of hosts (separated by commas can be passed from command line).

# cat addhost2.yml
- hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
    - add_host:
        name: "{{ item }}"
        groups: hosts_from_commandline
      with_items: "{{ new_hosts_passed.split(',') }}"


- hosts: hosts_from_commandline
  tasks:
    - name: Ansible create file with name passed from commandline
      file:
        path: "/tmp/{{ filename_from_commandline }}"
        state: touch
# ansible-playbook -i hosts addhost2.yml --extra-vars='new_hosts_passed=192.168.3.104,192.168.3.113 filename_from_commandline=lathamdkv'

Hope this helps

Can ansible variables be used to declare hosts in a playbook?

2 Answers2

to run from popup

Linked