Processing registered result of ec2 with_items

[Tim Van de Walle]

I have a role that encapsulates creation of ec2 instances. It's sole functionality is to create a specified number of ec2 instances, register them in a group and then wait for the SSH port to be available for those instances so that they can be further provisioned. For availability reasons we create instances in at a minimum of two availability zones. 

Most of the configuration of the main play is listed below:

- name: Launch image(s)
  local_action:
    module: ec2
    region: "{{item.ec2_region}}"
    zone: "{{item.ec2_zone}}"
    instance_type: "{{item.ec2_instance_type}}"
    image: "{{item.ec2_image}}"
    key_name: "{{item.ec2_keypair}}"
    exact_count: "{{item.ec2_exact_count}}"
    group: "{{item.ec2_security_groups}}"
    instance_tags: "{{item.ec2_tags}}"
    count_tag: "{{item.ec2_tags}}"
    vpc_subnet_id: "{{item.ec2_vpc_subnet_id}}"
    instance_profile_name: "{{item.ec2_instance_profile_name}}"
    wait: true
  register: ec2

- name: Add new servers to group for configuration
  local_action: add_host hostname={{item.public_dns_name}} groupname={{ec2_groupname}}
  with_items: ec2.instances
  when: ec2.changed

- name: Wait for the instances to boot by checking the ssh port
  local_action: wait_for host={{item.public_dns_name}} port=22 delay=60 timeout=320 state=started
  with_items: ec2.instances
  when: ec2.changed

This works as expected, however this requires the calling playbook to call this role once for each ec2 definition and because we are launching into multiple availability zones there are always at least 2 ec2 definitions. I decided to pass a list of definitions to the task that launches the ec2 instances. 

The new launch task looks like (notice the with_items):

- name: Launch image(s)
  local_action:
    module: ec2
    region: "{{item.ec2_region}}"
    zone: "{{item.ec2_zone}}"
    instance_type: "{{item.ec2_instance_type}}"
    image: "{{item.ec2_image}}"
    key_name: "{{item.ec2_keypair}}"
    exact_count: "{{item.ec2_exact_count}}"
    group: "{{item.ec2_security_groups}}"
    instance_tags: "{{item.ec2_tags}}"
    count_tag: "{{item.ec2_tags}}"
    vpc_subnet_id: "{{item.ec2_vpc_subnet_id}}"
    instance_profile_name: "{{item.ec2_instance_profile_name}}"
    wait: true
  register: ec2
  with_items: ec2_defs

The instances launch as expected, but problems arise when I try to use the registered result. The registered result  (edited down a bit) looks like:

    "ec2": {
        "changed": true,
        "msg": "All items completed",
        "results": [
            {
                "changed": true,
                "instance_ids": [
                    "i-85170f6a"
                ],
                "instances": [
                    {
                        "ami_launch_index": "0",
                        "architecture": "x86_64",
                        "hypervisor": "xen",
                        "virtualization_type": "paravirtual"
                    }
                ],
                "invocation": {
                    "module_args": "",
                    "module_name": "ec2"
                },
                ]
            },
            {
                "changed": true,
                "instance_ids": [
                    "i-9c18cf77"
                ],
                "instances": [
                    {
                        "ami_launch_index": "0",
                        "architecture": "x86_64",
                        "hypervisor": "xen",
                    }
                ],
                "invocation": {
                    "module_args": "",
                    "module_name": "ec2"
                },
            }
        ]
    }

I need to be able to iterate through all of the instances list in each of the results and I can't seem to find a loop construct that will make this happen.

This seems like a fairly common pattern, but perhaps I'm starting in the wrong place or it's just a known limitation. Any thoughts on a different approach?

Tim

[James Morgan]

Hi,

Did you find a solution to this? Having a similar issue

J

[Chris Church]

You might want to try with_sublements (http://docs.ansible.com/playbooks_loops.html#looping-over-subelements) - note the use of item.1 instead of just item:

- name: Add new servers to group for configuration

  local_action: add_host hostname={{item.1.public_dns_name}} groupname={{ec2_groupname}}
  with_subelements:

    - ec2.results

    - instances

  when: ec2.changed

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[James Morgan]

Hey,

Thanks for the info. That looks like what i'm looking for

Cheers