inventory_dir is still present as a global variable in Ansible 2.4 ?

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ishan jain

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Mar 7, 2018, 6:24:36 AM3/7/18

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Hi All,

I am trying to understand the changes with Ansible 2.4 that affects the usage of inventory_dir variable.

Earlier i was using a static host file and in my playbooks, i was heavily relying on inventory_dir to load variable files which in turn was loading the target hosts. I understand the purpose of making the inventory_dir as a hostvar, what i did not understand is how can i still access inventory_dir directly as a global variable in my playbooks ?

To show what i mean, i created a little demo:

hosts.info

[locals]
local1 localhost ansible_connection=local
local2 localhost ansible_connection=local

varsFile.yaml

#This doesn't work anymore
#moreVars: "{{ inventory_dir ~ 'moreVars.yaml' }}"

#This also works
#moreVars: "{{hostvars[groups.all.0].inventory_dir}}/moreVars.yaml"

#This works and this is what i was using before 2.4
moreVars: "{{inventory_dir}}/moreVars.yaml"

moreVars.yaml

#Prior to 2.4, this is how i defined target hosts. I understand this will not work anymore
targetHosts: locals

who: MORE_VARS

playbook.yaml

---
- hosts: locals
  vars_files:
        - varsFile.yaml
        - "{{moreVars}}"

  tasks:


     - debug: var=who

     - name: Accessing the inventory_dir as a host var
       debug: msg="Accessing inventory_dir as hostvar -- {{hostvars[groups.all.0].inventory_dir}}"

     - name: Accessing the inventory DIR directly
       debug: msg="Accessing inventory_dir directly -- {{inventory_dir}}"

output

$ ansible --version
ansible 2.4.3.0
$ ansible-playbook playbook.yaml -i hosts.info

PLAY [locals] ***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [local1]
ok: [local2]

TASK [debug] ****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [local1] => {
    "who": "MORE_VARS"
}
ok: [local2] => {
    "who": "MORE_VARS"
}

TASK [Accessing the inventory_dir as a host var] ****************************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [local1] => {
    "msg": "Accessing inventory_dir as hostvar -- /home/ij/temp"
}
ok: [local2] => {
    "msg": "Accessing inventory_dir as hostvar -- /home/ij/temp"
}

TASK [Accessing the inventory DIR directly] *********************************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [local1] => {
    "msg": "Accessing inventory_dir directly -- /home/ij/temp"
}
ok: [local2] => {
    "msg": "Accessing inventory_dir directly -- /home/ij/temp"
}

PLAY RECAP ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
local1                     : ok=4    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0
local2                     : ok=4    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0

So my questions:

1) How is inventory_dir still available as global var ?

2) Can i continue using it directly or i should use hostvars[groups.all.0].inventory_dir ?

Matt Martz

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Mar 7, 2018, 12:58:36 PM3/7/18

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Please see http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/porting_guide_2.4.html#inventory for information about the change to inventory_dir

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