Ansible include vars per host

Question

I've got a problem with Ansible 2.2 in Ubuntu.

My playbook contains the following:

---
- hosts: all
  become: yes
  roles:
    - mysql

I've used the MySQL role from here https://galaxy.ansible.com/geerlingguy/ but renamed all to MySQL locally. In the defaults folder of the playbook is a file which contains the parameter:

mysql_datadir: /var/lib/mysql

With that, Ansible is working fine. But now I want a specific configuration per host as explained here: http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_best_practices.html

So I created the file inventories/host_vars/test.yml, removed the one in the defaults folder of the task and updated the playbook to the following:

  ---
- hosts: all
  become: yes
  roles:
    - mysql
  tasks:
  - name: include vars
    include_vars: inventories/host_vars/test.yml

Now Ansible won't accept that; it says that the variable is not set:

fatal: []: FAILED! => {"failed": true, "msg": "the field 'args' has an invalid value, which appears to include a variable that is undefined. The error was: 'mysql_datadir' is undefined\n\nThe error appears to have been in '/home/michael/Ansible/Playbooks/roles/mysql/tasks/setup-Debian.yml': line 24, column 3, but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.\n\nThe offending line appears to be:\n\n\n- name: Delete innodb log files created by apt package after initial install.\n ^ here\n"}

Passing the argument via command line works without problems. How can I fix that?

Roles get executed before tasks. But as already mentioned, host_vars work automaticly if used correctly. — dgw

Palantir Palantir · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-08T15:44:19

I believe you have multiple issues there. I would recommend starting with the standard, simpler directory structure.

I would try to do the following:

Use the standard directory layout, so move host_vars to the top folder
Inside the host_vars directory, put one file for each host, named exactly after the host name defined in your inventory, start the file with "---" and put variables in there. DO NOT add the .yml extension to the file!
Do not explicitly "include" anything. It is automatic. No "tasks" in site.yml.

Ansible include vars per host

1 Answers