Multiple inventory sources

[Thomas Quinot]

Redirecting from -devel as advised.

On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 6:19 AM, Thomas Quinot <tho...@quinot.org> wrote:

> As far as I understand the current state of source code, ansible_hosts
> can be:
> * the path to a dynamic inventory program
> * the path to a static inventory file
> * the path to an inventory directory, from which dynamic inventory
> scripts and static inventory files are launched
> * a comma-separated list of host names
>
> In my usage context, several distinct applications are managed through
> Ansible, each with its own subset of hosts, and its own host grouping
> needs. So, I would like to have a two-level inventoy with:
> * a shared, company one inventory listing all hosts and setting
> common host variables
> * AND an application specific inventory for each application,
> providing additional application specific host groups (and
> possibly variables).
>
> I think it would be possible to implement that with minimal fuss
> by minimally tweaking the semantics of ansible_hosts so that it could
> be:
>
> * the path to a dynamic inventory program
> * the path to a static inventory file
> * the path to an inventory directory, from which dynamic inventory
> scripts and static inventory files are launched
> * a host name
> OR * a comma-separated list of /any of the above/
>
> I could thus set in a shared configuration:
>
> ansible_hosts=/path/to/companywide/inventory,appspecific_inventory
>
> where /path/to/companywide/inventory would be the company-wide
> shared inventory, and "appspecific_inventory", being a relative path,
> would be interpreted relative to the current directory and contain the
> application specific data.
>
> Thoughts?

(Again, I'm willing to start work on the implementation if there is
interest in this feature. :) ).

Thomas.

[Michael DeHaan]

I don't think as inventory directories are an existing thing.

That being said, any alternative way of managing inventory you want can be built using an inventory script.

Thomas.

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[Thomas Quinot]

* Michael DeHaan, 2014-11-17 :

> I don't think as inventory directories are an existing thing.

Not sure what you mean, as far as I can tell this is supported
by ansible.inventory.dir, and documented under "Using Multiple Inventory
Sources".

> That being said, any alternative way of managing inventory you want can be
> built using an inventory script.

That's true, but would require reimplementing the parsing of standard
inventoy files in the dynamic inventory script.

Thomas.

[Serge van Ginderachter]

On 18 November 2014 10:57, Thomas Quinot <tho...@quinot.org> wrote:

That's true, but would require reimplementing the parsing of standard
inventoy files in the dynamic inventory script.

​Not reinventing, you van just import the ansible.inventory​ in your script and use it (on your specific paths.)

E.g. this example script dumps the whole inventory in a dynamic script compatible json:

https://github.com/ginsys/ansible-plugins/blob/devel/bin/ansible-inventory