ini – Uses an Ansible INI file as inventory source¶
New in version 2.4.
Synopsis¶
- INI file based inventory, sections are groups or group related with special :modifiers.
- Entries in sections [group_1]are hosts, members of the group.
- Hosts can have variables defined inline as key/value pairs separated by =.
- The childrenmodifier indicates that the section contains groups.
- The varsmodifier indicates that the section contains variables assigned to members of the group.
- Anything found outside a section is considered an ‘ungrouped’ host.
- Values passed in the INI format using the key=valuesyntax are interpreted differently depending on where they are declared within your inventory.
- When declared inline with the host, INI values are processed by Python’s ast.literal_eval function (https://docs.python.org/2/library/ast.html#ast.literal_eval) and interpreted as Python literal structures (strings, numbers, tuples, lists, dicts, booleans, None). Host lines accept multiple key=valueparameters per line. Therefore they need a way to indicate that a space is part of a value rather than a separator.
- When declared in a :varssection, INI values are interpreted as strings. For examplevar=FALSEwould create a string equal toFALSE. Unlike host lines,:varssections accept only a single entry per line, so everything after the=must be the value for the entry.
- Do not rely on types set during definition, always make sure you specify type with a filter when needed when consuming the variable.
- See the Examples for proper quoting to prevent changes to variable type.
Notes¶
Note
- Whitelisted in configuration by default.
- Consider switching to YAML format for inventory sources to avoid confusion on the actual type of a variable. The YAML inventory plugin processes variable values consistently and correctly.
Examples¶
example1: |
    # example cfg file
    [web]
    host1
    host2 ansible_port=222 # defined inline, interpreted as an integer
    [web:vars]
    http_port=8080 # all members of 'web' will inherit these
    myvar=23 # defined in a :vars section, interpreted as a string
    [web:children] # child groups will automatically add their hosts to parent group
    apache
    nginx
    [apache]
    tomcat1
    tomcat2 myvar=34 # host specific vars override group vars
    tomcat3 mysecret="'03#pa33w0rd'" # proper quoting to prevent value changes
    [nginx]
    jenkins1
    [nginx:vars]
    has_java = True # vars in child groups override same in parent
    [all:vars]
    has_java = False # 'all' is 'top' parent
example2: |
    # other example config
    host1 # this is 'ungrouped'
    # both hosts have same IP but diff ports, also 'ungrouped'
    host2 ansible_host=127.0.0.1 ansible_port=44
    host3 ansible_host=127.0.0.1 ansible_port=45
    [g1]
    host4
    [g2]
    host4 # same host as above, but member of 2 groups, will inherit vars from both
          # inventory hostnames are unique
Status¶
- This inventory is not guaranteed to have a backwards compatible interface. [preview]
- This inventory is maintained by the Ansible Community. [community]
Authors¶
- UNKNOWN
Hint
If you notice any issues in this documentation, you can edit this document to improve it.
Hint
Configuration entries for each entry type have a low to high priority order. For example, a variable that is lower in the list will override a variable that is higher up.
