Inventory

• Ansible allows groups in inventory.
• Inventory is list of hosts where the playbook has to be executed.
• Inventory can be written in two formats
  • ini file
  • yaml

Ansible inventory ini file format

• ini file is a text file
• The inventory can be written as follows
• all entries directly

172.31.24.180
172.31.24.181
dev.internal.qt.com

• This falls under category all
• We can add specific groups

172.31.24.180
localhost

[ubuntu]
172.31.24.180
localhost

[centos]
20.121.55.193

• In the above file we have two named groups ubuntu and centos and one group all
• If we have sequence of entries we can mention them in inventory

172.31.24.180
localhost

[ubuntu]
172.31.24.180
localhost

[centos]
20.121.55.193

[webservers]
web[01:10].qt.com

• Adding variables to hosts in inventory

172.31.24.180
localhost

[ubuntu]
172.31.24.180 name=node1
localhost name=acn

[centos]
20.121.55.193 name=node2

[webservers]
web[01:10].qt.com

• let print the variable values using playbook

---
- name: test inventory
  hosts: ubuntu
  tasks:
    - name: print my variable
      ansible.builtin.debug:
        var: name

• Refer Here for the changes and see below for execution report

* Refer Here for the changes done to accomadate the group variable

Lets try to make this playbook work with centos 7

• Lets solve the different values for ubuntu and centos machines
• Refer Here for the changes done to install java on centos and ubuntu
• Refer Here for the fix to solve variable name collision
  
• Refer Here for the changes to add next few steps
• Refer Here for the changes done to copy the service file according to distribution using conditionals and execute playbook
  
• Refer Here for the changes done to reload the tomcat service
• When we re-execute ansible playbook some modules are executing un-necessarily lets stop that from happening
  
• Refer Here for usage of stats and skipping un-necessary extraction of tomcat
  
• As we need to change permission of shell files only when tomcat is extracted, using the same condition Refer Here for the changeset
  

ansible facts

• ansible can collect information about the node where the playbook is under execution using facts.
• To collect facts ansible uses setup module Refer Here
• Lets use adhoc command to filter facts ansible -i hosts -m setup -a "filter=*distribution*" all

172.31.24.180 | SUCCESS => {
    "ansible_facts": {
        "ansible_distribution": "Ubuntu",
        "ansible_distribution_file_parsed": true,
        "ansible_distribution_file_path": "/etc/os-release",
        "ansible_distribution_file_variety": "Debian",
        "ansible_distribution_major_version": "22",
        "ansible_distribution_release": "jammy",
        "ansible_distribution_version": "22.04",
        "discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"
    },
    "changed": false
}
20.121.55.193 | SUCCESS => {
    "ansible_facts": {
        "ansible_distribution": "CentOS",
        "ansible_distribution_file_parsed": true,
        "ansible_distribution_file_path": "/etc/redhat-release",
        "ansible_distribution_file_variety": "RedHat",
        "ansible_distribution_major_version": "8",
        "ansible_distribution_release": "NA",
        "ansible_distribution_version": "8.5",
        "discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/libexec/platform-python"
    },
    "changed": false
}

Adhoc command

• Adhoc command is a way of running ansible module by constructing command line
• We use adhoc commands for activities which donot require automation.

Conditionals in Ansible

• Refer Here for the official ansible docs on conditionals