How to supply defaults to tasks in 2.x?

[Yvo]

Hi,

I'm upgrading a few Ansible scripts from 1.8 to 2.0 and I'm not sure how to solve this deprecation issue:

"[DEPRECATION WARNING]: Using variables for task params is unsafe, especially if the variables come from an external source like facts. This feature will be 

removed in a future release. Deprecation warnings can be disabled by setting deprecation_warnings=False in ansible.cfg."

I've read the porting guide and a few posts here and on GitHub, but I can't use "items" in my case.

In my group_vars I define the defaults for the apt task:

apt_defaults:
  cache_valid_time: 3600
  install_recommends: no
  update_cache: yes

In my script I refer to them:

  - name: Install server and helper packages
    apt: pkg={{item}} state=installed
    args: "{{apt_defaults}}"
    with_items:
      - ntp
      - curl
      - git
      - patch
      - htop

How can I solve this in the new version?

Thanks!

 

[Brian Coca]

in both versions you can still solve this by using YAML references

vars:

  apt_defaults: &apt_defaults

...

- apt:

  <<: *apt_defaults

  pkg: "{{item}}"

...

----------

Brian Coca

[Yvo]

Brian, thank you for that workaround.

Your solution however forces `pkg` as a separate argument on a new line.

How would I supply `install_recommends` to that (specific) task? This for example doesn't work:

...

- apt:

  <<: *apt_defaults

  pkg: "{{item}}"

  install_recommends: yes

It would be nice if it was possible to simply set defaults for tasks.

Something like:

defaults:

  apt:

    cache_valid_time: 3600

And then allowing these defaults to be overridden by the actual task.

Even better if you could specify these defaults in the group_vars.

[Brian Coca]

not sure why the install_recommends fails for you, it should override the original key

----------

Brian Coca

[Yvo]

Your example has a small syntax error, pkg should be nested under args.

This works:

...

vars:
    apt_defaults: &apt_defaults
      cache_valid_time: 3600
      install_recommends: no
      update_cache: yes

...

  - name: Install server and helper packages
    apt:

    args:
      <<: *apt_defaults
      pkg: '{{item}}'

    with_items:
      - ntp
      - curl
      - git
      - patch
      - htop

I'm going to play around with it, see if I can move the defaults back to group_vars.

[Yvo]

Ah this also works and is a bit shorter:

...

vars:
    apt_defaults: &apt_defaults
      cache_valid_time: 3600
      install_recommends: no
      update_cache: yes

...

  - name: Install server and

helper packages
    apt: pkg={{item}}
    args: *apt_defaults
    with_items:

      - ntp
      - curl
      - git
      - patch
      - htop