Dynamic Inventory Script - Groups in Groups

[A Drew]

Hello,

I am running into a problem with trying to create Dynamic Inventories via a Python Script, when the structure has Groups that belong to Groups.

If I just have a list of servers in each group, I do not have any problems.

Here is an INI example of what I need to create:

For example, here is what the INI version of my inventory would look likeL

[cell_test_1]

unix1

unix9

[cell_test_2]

unix2

unix10

[Test:children]

cell_test_1

cell_test_2

My script is able to generate either yaml or jason.

The output or each look like:

YAML

Test:

  children:

    cell_test_1:

      hosts:

        - unix1

        - unix9

    cell_test_2:

      hosts:

        - unix2

        - unix10

JSON{"test": {"children": {"cell_test_1": {"hosts": ["unix1", "unix9"]}, "cell_test_2": {"hosts": ["unix2", "unix10"]}}, "vars": null}}

Feeding in either into Tower produces the output of:

2.060 INFO     Updating inventory 94: xx_Test_Inventory

2

2.112 DEBUG    Using system install of ansible-inventory CLI: /usr/bin/ansible-inventory

3

2.112 INFO     Reading Ansible inventory source: /tmp/awx_45115_aZ12p6/tmpYrrkcr

4

2.123 DEBUG    Using provided directory '/tmp/awx_45115_aZ12p6' for isolation.

5

2.123 DEBUG    Running from `/tmp/awx_45115_aZ12p6` working directory.

6

3.154 INFO     Processing JSON output...

7

3.154 DEBUG    Loaded group: all

8

3.154 DEBUG    Loaded group: Test

9

3.155 DEBUG    Adding child group Test to parent all

10

3.155 DEBUG    Loaded group: cell_test_1

11

3.155 DEBUG    Adding child group cell_test_1 to parent Test

12

3.155 DEBUG    Loaded group: cell_test_2

13

3.155 DEBUG    Adding child group cell_test_2 to parent Test

14

3.155 DEBUG    Adding child group Test to parent all

15

3.155 DEBUG    Adding child group Test to parent all

16

3.155 DEBUG    Finished loading from source: /tmp/awx_45115_aZ12p6/tmpYrrkcr

17

3.156 DEBUG    Removing empty group cell_test_1

18

3.156 DEBUG    Removing empty group cell_test_2

19

3.156 INFO     Loaded 1 groups, 0 hosts

20

3.324 DEBUG    Group "test" deleted

21

3.330 DEBUG    Inventory variables unmodified

22

3.364 DEBUG    Group "Test" added

23

3.485 INFO     Inventory import completed for AJ_Test_WAS_Inventory in 1.4s

Has anyone else run into this problem?

Can I get help as to what either format (YAML or JSON) should look like to get the hosts to be added to the cell_test_* groups?

Thanks much!

[Kai Stian Olstad]

On 19.08.2019 20:12, A Drew wrote:
> Can I get help as to what either format (YAML or JSON) should look like to
> get the hosts to be added to the cell_test_* groups?

The format is in the documentation
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/dev_guide/developing_inventory.html


--
Kai Stian Olstad

[A Drew]

I don't mean to be dumb, but I read the document page you indicated, and the example formats I have provide appear to me to fit into what is says should work, yet they are not.

This is why I posted the question.

Thanks!

[Kai Stian Olstad]

On 19.08.2019 20:49, A Drew wrote:
> I don't mean to be dumb, but I read the document page you indicated, and
> the example formats I have provide appear to me to fit into what is says
> should work, yet they are not.
>
> This is why I posted the question.

Most people posting on the list don't read documentation, so I though this was the case now also. sorry about that.

Since you have a ini file, put that in a file called inv.yml and then run
ansible-inventory -i inv.yml --list

Then you'll getting the output Ansible expect from a inventory script.


--
Kai Stian Olstad

[A Drew]

Normally, I would.

However, for this specific case of our, we are reading a database to generate the list of servers, so to prevent having to maintain the list of servers in 2 places, we are using a script to read the database and generate the JSON output.

Thanks!

[Kai Stian Olstad]

On 19.08.2019 21:20, A Drew wrote:
> Normally, I would.
>
> However, for this specific case of our, we are reading a database to
> generate the list of servers, so to prevent having to maintain the list of
> servers in 2 places, we are using a script to read the database and
> generate the JSON output.

You wanted to know how the JSON output should be for your ini example.
The method I posted will give you that output.

So when you have the correct output you can recreate that in your script.
I did not mean you should abandon your script and go for ini file.


--
Kai Stian Olstad

[A Drew]

FYI

I finally figured out a way to handle the structure.

A big note, for me, when I created a JSON item, if I ran it through a 'json.dumps' command, to validate, it would actually create an object that Tower did not like.  However, if I just created a JSON string that was fine.

Thanks!