Change hosts variable when including another playbook

[Tristan Muntsinger]

How do I change hosts when including tasks from another playbook?  I've tried both methods I could find below, but neither seems to work:

- name: example
  hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - name: execute this task
      include: tasks/task1.yml
      hosts: "{{ name }}.example.com"

- name: example
  hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - name: execute this task
      include: tasks/task1.yml hosts={{ name }}.example.com

-Tristan

[Brian Coca]

you don't, you create a new play that targets those hosts:

--

----------

Brian Coca

[Tristan Muntsinger]

I need to be able to do this from a single playbook.  What if I create a task that is a shell command that calls into ansible-playbook on a different playbook?

-Tristan

[Brian Coca]

A playbook can have multiple plays:

- hosts: host_for_play_1

  tasks:

   - debug: msg='play 1 task'

​

​    ...

​

​- hosts: host_for_play_2

  tasks:

   - debug: msg='play 2 task'​

    ....

----------

Brian Coca

[Tristan Muntsinger]

I understand that, but it seems that each play can't have a different hosts set.  That is, I would like the first play to have "localhost" as the hosts and the second play to have hosts dynamically set to whatever the first play says it is.

-Tristan

[Kai Stian Olstad]

On 26. sep. 2016 19:53, Tristan Muntsinger wrote:
> I understand that, but it seems that each play can't have a different hosts
> set. That is, I would like the first play to have "localhost" as the hosts
> and the second play to have hosts dynamically set to whatever the first
> play says it is.

This it possible to do, see example below.

---
- hosts: localhost
tasks:
- command: echo "a1"
register: result

- hosts: "{{ hostvars['localhost']['result']['stdout'] }}"
tasks:
- debug: var=play_host

The second play will run against host a1.

--
Kai Stian Olstad

[Tristan Muntsinger]

Using your example (and replacing 'a1' with the host I care about) doesn't appear to work.  This is what I see:

PLAY [test] ******************************************************************* 

skipping: no hosts matched

When I directly copy/paste the hostname into hosts in the second play, it works as expected.

-Tristan

[Kai Stian Olstad]

On 30. sep. 2016 02:30, Tristan Muntsinger wrote:
> Using your example (and replacing 'a1' with the host I care about) doesn't
> appear to work. This is what I see:
>
> PLAY [test]
> *******************************************************************
> skipping: no hosts matched
>
> When I directly copy/paste the hostname into hosts in the second play, it
> works as expected.

It works for me with Ansible 2.1.1.

---
- hosts: localhost
tasks:
- command: echo "a1"
register: result

- hosts: "{{ hostvars['localhost']['result']['stdout'] }}"
tasks:

- debug: var=play_hosts


$ ansible-playbook test.yml

PLAY [localhost] **********************************************

TASK [setup] **************************************************
ok: [localhost]

TASK [command] ************************************************
changed: [localhost]

PLAY [a1] *****************************************************

TASK [setup] **************************************************
ok: [a1]

TASK [debug] **************************************************
ok: [a1] => {
"play_hosts": [
"a1"
]
}

PLAY RECAP ***************************************************************
a1 : ok=2 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0
localhost : ok=2 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=0

--
Kai Stian Olstad

[Tristan Muntsinger]

Maybe the issue is that I'm using 1.9.1-1

I was able to finally resolve my issue by doing the below:

---

- hosts: localhost

  tasks:

    - command: echo "a1"

      register: result

    - add_host: name="{{ result.stdout }}" groups="new-play-hosts"

- hosts: "new-play-hosts"

  tasks:

    - local_action: debug var=play_hosts

-Tristan

[Mike Schlottman]

I do this by setting the hosts line in a playbook to a variable.  I've been working with virtual machines a lot lately, so the variable I use is vms.

---

- hosts: "{{ vms }}"

Then when I call the playbook, I just pass the group or hosts that I want to run the playbook against.

ansible-playbook -i myhosts task1.yml -e "vms=dev-servers"

[Aditya Garg]

What will be the command to pass username and password for both the host considering none of the host is localhost.