Ansible – Use Ansible Variable Without Quotes

ansible

To use a variable gathered from json, I need it to be raw, without quotes:

I have

ok: [device] => {
    "fact": {
        "int": "7"
    },
}

I want

ok: [device] => {
    "fact": {
        "int": 7
    },
}

The thing is that the quotes are not part of the variable so I cant use | int or | replace to remove the quotes.

Is there a way ?

Best Answer

The result of a Jinja expression is always a string. You can't get an integer. What you really want, I guess, is the value of the attribute int in the dictionary fact to be an integer. Test the current value, e.g.

        - debug:
            var: fact.int
        - debug:
            var: fact.int|type_debug

If the value of the attribute int is a string you'll get (abridged)

  fact.int: '7'
  fact.int|type_debug: AnsibleUnicode

You can convert the string to an integer, e.g.

        - set_fact:
            fact: "{{ fact|combine({'int': _int|int}) }}"
          vars:
            _int: "{{ fact.int }}"
        - debug:
            var: fact.int
        - debug:
            var: fact.int|type_debug

you'll get (abridged)

  fact.int: '7'
  fact.int|type_debug: int

Now, the value of the attribute int is an integer. But, the result of the Jinja expression var: fact.int is still a string fact.int: '7'.

^{Notes

Be aware that the var option of the debug module already runs in Jinja2 context and has an implicit {{ }} wrapping.}

Related Solutions

Ansible Host Variables – How to Access Host Variable of a Different Host with Ansible

You can access pretty much any inventory facts/variables by doing something like this:

{{ hostvars['foo.example.com']['ansible_eth0']['ipv4']['address'] }}

or, if you want to do it via an index into a group:

{{ hostvars[groups['collectors'][0]]['ansible_eth0']['ipv4']['address'] }}

The big trick is that you need to collect the facts for all the hosts/groups you're interested in. So you would want to modify your playbook that runs against the reporters group to include a no-op (dummy) task that is applied to the collectors group. That will cause Ansible to collect facts about the collectors hosts so that they can be accessed from the reporters group. So you might want to add something like this to the top of your reporters playbook:

- hosts: collectors
  name: Gather facts from collectors
  tasks: [ ]

The empty brackets basically mean that no tasks will be executed, but this will still force Ansible to gather facts about the collectors so that you can then reference them in the tasks that you run against your reporters.

Edit #1

It occurred to me that I should also mention that as of version 1.8 of Ansible, there is a fact-caching feature that is now available. Fact caching relies on a redis server to store facts between playbook runs. With it enabled, one playbook can reference facts that were obtained by another playbook that was run previously. The example the Ansible documentation gives:

Imagine, for instance, a very large infrastructure with thousands of hosts. Fact caching could be configured to run nightly, but configuration of a small set of servers could run ad-hoc or periodically throughout the day. With fact-caching enabled, it would not be necessary to “hit” all servers to reference variables and information about them.

Use variable only if defined in Ansible

As usual, after spending 2 hours postponing asking the question here, I find the answer 5 mins after I post the question!

Its really simple. To set a different remote_user for individual systems without having to apply loads of hacks to existing playbooks, just add the var to the host in your inventory:

[web_servers]
server1 ansible_ssh_user=user
server2

In this instance, any time a play incldues server1, "user" will be used as the ssh user. For server2, the value of remote_user from your ansible.cfg file will be used (eg user1, user2 etc depending on the local environment).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ansible Host Variables – How to Access Host Variable of a Different Host with Ansible

Edit #1

Use variable only if defined in Ansible

Related Topic