How to apply/run playbook target at a specific group of machines in the ini-style inventory

[James Ngo]

Hello everyone,

I am a pretty new face to Ansible. I can follow instruction pretty good however, I need your help with the following scenario.

I created an .INI style inventory file called "hosts", with basically categorize our devices/servers in different groups like below

+++++++++++++++++++

[Ubuntu]

192.168.100.105

192.168.100.106

[Windows]

192.168.100.200

192.168.100.201

[Mac]

192.168.100.300

192.168.100.301

++++++++++++++++++++++

This inventory file is saved in ~/ansible/inventory/hosts

Playbook file (called play1.yml) is saved in ~/ansible/plabooks/play1: check for updates

I can ping the devices in [Windows] group using this command:

$ ansible -i ./inventory/hosts Windows -m ping --user admin --ask-pass

Now, I try to check for updates for just the devices/machines in [Windows] group, using this command:

$ ansible-playbook ./playbooks/play1.yml --user admin --ask-pass --ask-become-pass -i ./inventory/hosts Windows

It returns error that it does not know what devices/machines that I'm targeting at. In another word, it does not recognize my flag ./inventory/hosts Windows

Could someone guide me how to make the proper reference to a specific group of the machines?

Thank you

[Dick Visser]

Then the issue must in the playbook itself. 

What does that look like?

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[James Ngo]

Hi,

Right, it maybe the playbook itself. Anyway, the play1.yml is per below:

========================

- hosts: "*"

  become: yes

  tasks:

    - name: apt

      apt:

        update_cache: yes

        upgrade: 'yes'

=========================

If I run the play1.yml with the following command, without specify any group name, it works:

$ ansible-playbook ./playbooks/play1.yml --user admin --ask-pass --ask-become-pass -i ./inventory/hosts

Then it is OK!!!

[Dick Visser]

That "*" is a bit unusual (to me at least).

Try:

hosts: all

And then see if the issue is still there

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[James Ngo]

I have changed to "host: all" per your suggestion, it unfortunately did not help...

It does not like the -i ./inventory/hosts Windows

But if I just do -i ./inventory/hosts (without the group "Windows"), it will work but it will do all the devices/machines instead of just a specific group (which I want to)

Thank you

[James Ngo]

I actually figured it out, should use the -l

-i ./inventory/hosts -l Windows

Works like a charm!