Using `remote_user` in `ansible_ssh_common_args` in inventory file

Question

In my network there is one server (server2) that can't be accessed directly. First you have to ssh to server1 and from there to server2.

My config file has the following line:

remote_user = foo.bar

My inventory:

 hosts:
   server1:
     ansible_host: 10.0.0.1
   server2:
     ansible_host: 10.0.0.2
     ansible_ssh_common_args: '-o ProxyCommand="ssh -W %h:%p -q foo.bar@10.0.0.1"'

This works fine, but I don't want the user name to be hardcoded. Here and here there are examples that remote_user can be passed via {{ ansible_ssh_user }} but I can't get it to work.

What I tried:

ansible_ssh_common_args: '-o ProxyCommand="ssh -W %h:%p -q {{ ansible_ssh_user }}@10.0.0.1"'

Also tried {{ ansible_user }} and {{ user }}. But when I run ansible server2 -m ping I get an error

"The field 'ssh_common_args' has an invalid value, which includes an undefined variable. The error was: 'ansible_user' is undefined"

Is it possible to use user defined by remote_user in ansible_ssh_common_args?

P.S. ansible server1 -m ping works fine.

P.P.S. Wrote a playbook for test purposes:

- name: Playbook to test default user
  hosts: all
  gather_facts: false

  tasks:
  - name: Print default users
    debug:
      var: ansible_user

When I run ansible-playbook test-default-user.yml --limit server1 I get

ok: [server1] => {
    "ansible_user": "foo.bar"
}

Also works with ansible_ssh_user, but for just {{ user }} I get

ok: [server1] => {
    "user": "VARIABLE IS NOT DEFINED!"
}

How and where exactly did you declare `ansible_ssh_user` or all other varialbles you tried ? — Zeitounator, Mar 18 '21 at 09:39
As far as I could understand it's defined in config file. See [here](https://stackoverflow.com/a/24121223/10842470), for example. — tariver, Mar 18 '21 at 09:44
Added P.P.S. with a test playbook to show that `{{ ansible_user }}` is indeed defined. — tariver, Mar 18 '21 at 10:05

tariver · Accepted Answer · 2023-06-20T10:39:35.657

Wrote this question to the Ansible mailing list and got an answer from developer. https://groups.google.com/g/ansible-project/c/fY5lAHCEHfA

Short summary - it's not supposed to work this way. In the future there will be a special component to query plugin settings.

Update 20.06.2023 - The following works now: ansible_ssh_common_args: '-o ProxyCommand="ssh -W %h:%p -q {{ ansible_ssh_user }}@10.0.0.1"'

Ansible version 2.12.10

Using `remote_user` in `ansible_ssh_common_args` in inventory file

1 Answers1