foreman_ansible_inventory ========================= [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/theforeman/foreman_ansible_inventory.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/theforeman/foreman_ansible_inventory) [![PyPI version](https://badge.fury.io/py/foreman_ansible_inventory.svg)](https://badge.fury.io/py/foreman_ansible_inventory) This script can be used as an Ansible dynamic inventory[1]. The connection parameters are set up via a configuration file *foreman.ini*. *foreman.ini* is found using the following order of discovery. * `/etc/ansible/foreman.ini` * Current directory of your inventory script. * `FOREMAN_INI_PATH` environment variable. ## Variables and Parameters The data returned from Foreman for each host is stored in a foreman hash so they're available as *host_vars* along with the parameters of the host and it's hostgroups: "foo.example.com": { "foreman": { "architecture_id": 1, "architecture_name": "x86_64", "build": false, "build_status": 0, "build_status_label": "Installed", "capabilities": [ "build", "image" ], "compute_profile_id": 4, "hostgroup_name": "webtier/myapp", "id": 70, "image_name": "debian8.1", ... "uuid": "50197c10-5ebb-b5cf-b384-a1e203e19e77" }, "foreman_params": { "testparam1": "foobar", "testparam2": "small", ... } and could therefore be used in Ansible like: - debug: msg="From Foreman host {{ foreman['uuid'] }}" Which yields TASK [test_foreman : debug] **************************************************** ok: [foo.example.com] => { "msg": "From Foreman host 50190bd1-052a-a34a-3c9c-df37a39550bf" } ## Automatic Ansible groups The inventory will provide a set of groups, by default prefixed by 'foreman_'. If you want to customize this prefix, change the group_prefix option in /etc/ansible/foreman.ini. The rest of this guide will assume the default prefix of 'foreman' The hostgroup, location, organization, content view, and lifecycle environment of each host are created as Ansible groups with a foreman_ prefix, all lowercase and problematic parameters removed. So e.g. the foreman hostgroup myapp / webtier / datacenter1 would turn into the Ansible group: foreman_hostgroup_myapp_webtier_datacenter1 Furthermore Ansible groups can be created on the fly using the *group_patterns* variable in *foreman.ini* so that you can build up hierarchies using parameters on the hostgroup and host variables. Lets assume you have a host that is built using this nested hostgroup: myapp / webtier / datacenter1 and each of the hostgroups defines a parameters respectively: myapp: app_param = myapp webtier: tier_param = webtier datacenter1: dc_param = datacenter1 The host is also in a subnet called "mysubnet" and provisioned via an image then *group_patterns* like: [ansible] group_patterns = ["{app_param}-{tier_param}-{dc_param}", "{app_param}-{tier_param}", "{app_param}", "{subnet_name}-{provision_method}"] would put the host into the additional Ansible groups: - myapp-webtier-datacenter1 - myapp-webtier - myapp - mysubnet-image by recursively resolving the hostgroups, getting the parameter keys and values and doing a Python *string.format()* like replacement on it. [1]: http://docs.ansible.com/intro_dynamic_inventory.html