ERROR! vars file vars not found on the Ansible Controller

ansibleansible-2.xansible-role

ERROR! vars file vars not found on the Ansible Controller. If you are using a module and expect the file to exist on the remote, see the remote_src option.

---
# tasks file for user-management
- hosts: linux
  become: yes
  vars_files:
    - vars/active-users
    - vars/remove-users
  roles:
    - { role: user-management }
  tasks:
    - import_tasks: /tasks/user-accounts.yml
    - import_tasks: /tasks/authorized-key.yml

Trying to run the main.yml on a server to execute on remote hosts (linux). The vars playbook in the vars directory has two playbooks (active-users, remove-users).

Best Answer

Your vars folder should be at the same level than your playbook. If yes would it be possible that you missed .yml extension of your active-users and remove-users.

Related Solutions

Safely limiting Ansible playbooks to a single machine

Turns out it is possible to enter a host name directly into the playbook, so running the playbook with hosts: imac-2.local will work fine. But it's kind of clunky.

A better solution might be defining the playbook's hosts using a variable, then passing in a specific host address via --extra-vars:

# file: user.yml  (playbook)
---
- hosts: '{{ target }}'
  user: ...

Running the playbook:

ansible-playbook user.yml --extra-vars "target=imac-2.local"

If {{ target }} isn't defined, the playbook does nothing. A group from the hosts file can also be passed through if need be. Overall, this seems like a much safer way to construct a potentially destructive playbook.

Playbook targeting a single host:

$ ansible-playbook user.yml --extra-vars "target=imac-2.local" --list-hosts

playbook: user.yml

  play #1 (imac-2.local): host count=1
    imac-2.local

Playbook with a group of hosts:

$ ansible-playbook user.yml --extra-vars "target=office" --list-hosts

playbook: user.yml

  play #1 (office): host count=3
    imac-1.local
    imac-2.local
    imac-3.local

Forgetting to define hosts is safe!

$ ansible-playbook user.yml --list-hosts

playbook: user.yml

  play #1 ({{target}}): host count=0

Ansible: include role in a role

Old question BUT for the record: use Ansible 2.2+ and you're good to go with include_role. Exactly for this very purpose... see documentation here.

Check out import_role as well... see documentation here

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Safely limiting Ansible playbooks to a single machine

Ansible: include role in a role

Related Topic