From the ansible docs: If a required variable has not been set, you can skip or fail using Jinja2’s defined test. For example: tasks: – shell: echo “I’ve got ‘{{ foo }}’ and am not afraid to use it!” when: foo is defined – fail: msg=”Bailing out. this play requires ‘bar'” when: bar is not … Read more
You can use Jinja’s default: – name: Create user user: name: “{{ my_variable | default(‘default_value’) }}”
There are two options that you can add to the [defaults] section of the ansible.cfg file that will control whether or not .retry files are created and where they are created. [defaults] … retry_files_enabled = True # Create them – the default retry_files_enabled = False # Do not create them retry_files_save_path = “~/” # The … Read more
Ansible uses YAML syntax in its playbooks. YAML has a number of block operators: The > is a folding block operator. That is, it joins multiple lines together by spaces. The following syntax: key: > This text has multiple lines Would assign the value This text has multiple lines\n to key. The | character is … Read more
The necessary variable is inventory_hostname. – name: Install this only for local dev machine pip: name=pyramid when: inventory_hostname == “local” It is somewhat hidden in the documentation at the bottom of this section.
With Ansible 1.9 or later Ansible uses the become, become_user, and become_method directives to achieve privilege escalation. You can apply them to an entire play or playbook, set them in an included playbook, or set them for a particular task. – name: checkout repo git: repo=https://github.com/some/repo.git version=master dest={{ dst }} become: yes become_user: some_user You … Read more
From the FAQ: How do I see a list of all of the ansible_ variables? Ansible by default gathers “facts” about the machines under management, and these facts can be accessed in playbooks and in templates. To see a list of all of the facts that are available about a machine, you can run the … Read more
The Ansible documentation on variable precedence summarizes this nicely: If multiple variables of the same name are defined in different places, they win in a certain order, which is: extra vars (-e in the command line) always win then comes connection variables defined in inventory (ansible_ssh_user, etc) then comes “most everything else” (command line switches, … Read more
You can use the lineinfile built-in in a loop. Here’s an example: – name: Set some kernel parameters lineinfile: dest: /etc/sysctl.conf regexp: “{{ item.regexp }}” line: “{{ item.line }}” loop: – { regexp: ‘^kernel.shmall’, line: ‘kernel.shmall = 2097152’ } – { regexp: ‘^kernel.shmmax’, line: ‘kernel.shmmax = 134217728’ } … Read more
I stumbled upon this error running ansible on Ubuntu 15.10 server, because it ships with Python 3.4.3 and ansible requires Python 2. This is how my provision.yml looks now: – hosts: my_app sudo: yes remote_user: root gather_facts: no pre_tasks: – name: ‘install python2’ raw: sudo apt-get -y install python tasks: – name: ‘ensure user {{ … Read more