Dynamic Inventory Error

[Leon Pinkney]

Hi All,

I have been using Ansible for a few months now and have started to create some custom python scripts to enable me to implement tasks I haven't otherwise been able to do within standard playbooks.

My inventory file is starting to grow and since all of the information in it is currently available from a DB, I started to look at dynamic inventory.

I wanted to start by understanding the JSON required to build an inventory, so came up with the following code in an effort to understand it.  I realise that this is not a complete solution, it is purely for me to understand the required format of the data.

inv = {
    "company": {
        "hosts": [
            "server",
            "sensor"
        ]
    },
    "_meta": {
        "hostvars": {
            "server": {
                "ansible_ssh_host" : "7.7.7.7",
                "ansible_ssh_port" : "44"
            },
            "sensor": {
                "ansible_ssh_host" : "7.7.7.7",
                "ansible_ssh_port" : "33"
            }
        }
    }
}
inv = json.dumps(inv)

inventory = ansible.inventory.Inventory(inv)

If I print inv, it comes out like so...

{"company": {"hosts": ["server", "sensor"]}, "_meta": {"hostvars": {"sensor": {"ansible_ssh_host": "7.7.7.7", "ansible_ssh_port": "44"}, "server": {"ansible_ssh_host": "7.7.7.7", "ansible_ssh_port": "33"}}}}

When I execute this code however, I get the following error.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test_inventory.py", line 33, in <module>
    inventory = ansible.inventory.Inventory(inv)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/inventory/__init__.py", line 93, in __init__
    all.add_host(Host(tokens[0], tokens[1]))
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/inventory/host.py", line 32, in __init__
    self.set_variable('ansible_ssh_port', int(port))
ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: '"22"}'

I've tried removing the string quotes from the port number, but the problem persists.  If I remove the ansible_ssh_port lines, I get no errors.

Can anyone offer any advice?  I'm current running Ansible version 1.9.4 which I understand is the latest.

Thanks!

[Matt Martz]

You cannot provide dynamic inventory JSON output, that would normally come from a script, directly to the Inventory class.  The first argument for Inventory is the `host_list`, which can be 1 of 3 things:

1) Path to ini formatted inventory file

2) Path to executable dynamic inventory script

3) Comma separated hosts list that looks like "foo,bar,baz" or at minimum "foo," with a trailing comma

Because your JSON has a comma in it, it get's split, and then we try to loop through and split things out.  At this point Ansible believes it finds a host called "ansible_ssh_host" with a port of "22" (including the quotes).

I have done what you are trying to do before, which required subclassing `Inventory` and overriding `parse_inventory` and subclassing `InventoryScript` and overriding `__init__` and `get_host_variables` in order to allow my new classes to just accept a JSON string like you are trying to do.

In the end, it is just easier, using a callable script, and passing that to `Inventory`.  So, basically move the `inv` assignment and do `print json.dumps(inv)` in a single script, and provide the path to that script to `ansible.inventory.Inventory`.

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[Leon Pinkney]

Just to add, if I change the line to:
    "ansible_ssh_port" : 22

I get:

    ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: '22}'

I edited "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/inventory/host.py" and before line 32 added:
    print '>>' + port + '<<'

Which outputs:
    >> 22}<<

Clearly, the information isn't being parsed correctly.  Is it my code, or a bug?

[pixel fairy]

If your just trying to get the syntax of the json right, there are easier ways to test. heres the above as an inventory script.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import json

inv = {

    "company": {
        "hosts": [
            "server",
            "sensor"
        ]
    },
    "_meta": {
        "hostvars": {
            "server": {
                "ansible_ssh_host" : "7.7.7.7",
                "ansible_ssh_port" : 44
            },
            "sensor": {
                "ansible_ssh_host" : "7.7.7.7",
                "ansible_ssh_port" : "33"
            }
        }
    }
}

print(json.dumps(inv))

heres the output of some test commands with (with ansible 2.0rc8, but it should work the same with 1.9x)

$ ansible -i leon.py all --list-hosts
  hosts (2):
    server
    sensor
$ ansible -i leon.py sensor -m debug -a var=vars
sensor | SUCCESS => {
    "vars": {
        "ansible_ssh_host": "7.7.7.7",
        "ansible_ssh_port": "33",
        "group_names": [
            "company"
        ],
        "inventory_hostname": "sensor",
        "inventory_hostname_short": "sensor"
    }
}