ini – Uses an Ansible INI file as inventory source¶
New in version 2.4.
Synopsis¶
INI file based inventory, sections are groups or group related with special :modifiers.
Entries in sections
[group_1]
are hosts, members of the group.Hosts can have variables defined inline as key/value pairs separated by
=
.The
children
modifier indicates that the section contains groups.The
vars
modifier indicates that the section contains variables assigned to members of the group.Anything found outside a section is considered an ‘ungrouped’ host.
Values passed in the INI format using the
key=value
syntax are interpreted differently depending on where they are declared within your inventory.When declared inline with the host, INI values are processed by Python’s ast.literal_eval function (https://docs.python.org/2/library/ast.html#ast.literal_eval) and interpreted as Python literal structures (strings, numbers, tuples, lists, dicts, booleans, None). Host lines accept multiple
key=value
parameters per line. Therefore they need a way to indicate that a space is part of a value rather than a separator.When declared in a
:vars
section, INI values are interpreted as strings. For examplevar=FALSE
would create a string equal toFALSE
. Unlike host lines,:vars
sections accept only a single entry per line, so everything after the=
must be the value for the entry.Do not rely on types set during definition, always make sure you specify type with a filter when needed when consuming the variable.
See the Examples for proper quoting to prevent changes to variable type.
Notes¶
Note
Whitelisted in configuration by default.
Consider switching to YAML format for inventory sources to avoid confusion on the actual type of a variable. The YAML inventory plugin processes variable values consistently and correctly.
Examples¶
example1: |
# example cfg file
[web]
host1
host2 ansible_port=222 # defined inline, interpreted as an integer
[web:vars]
http_port=8080 # all members of 'web' will inherit these
myvar=23 # defined in a :vars section, interpreted as a string
[web:children] # child groups will automatically add their hosts to parent group
apache
nginx
[apache]
tomcat1
tomcat2 myvar=34 # host specific vars override group vars
tomcat3 mysecret="'03#pa33w0rd'" # proper quoting to prevent value changes
[nginx]
jenkins1
[nginx:vars]
has_java = True # vars in child groups override same in parent
[all:vars]
has_java = False # 'all' is 'top' parent
example2: |
# other example config
host1 # this is 'ungrouped'
# both hosts have same IP but diff ports, also 'ungrouped'
host2 ansible_host=127.0.0.1 ansible_port=44
host3 ansible_host=127.0.0.1 ansible_port=45
[g1]
host4
[g2]
host4 # same host as above, but member of 2 groups, will inherit vars from both
# inventory hostnames are unique
Status¶
This inventory is not guaranteed to have a backwards compatible interface. [preview]
This inventory is maintained by the Ansible Community. [community]
Authors¶
UNKNOWN
Hint
If you notice any issues in this documentation, you can edit this document to improve it.
Hint
Configuration entries for each entry type have a low to high priority order. For example, a variable that is lower in the list will override a variable that is higher up.