Ansible: How to refer to variables of a specific key

Question

I have a host_vars file that looks like this:

---
clients:
cl1:
  to_install:
  - value11
  - value21
  to_uninstall:
  - value31
cl3:
  to_install:
  - value12
  - value22
  - value32
  to_uninstall:
  - value42

I would like the values listed under cl1/to_install to be installed to cl1 client only, and those under cl3/to_install to be installed to cl3 only. This should be done by looping the values contained in to_install . cl1 and cl3 are also defined in the hosts file. I am trying just to print the values:

- name: test variables...
  hosts: localhost
  vars_files:
    - path/to/hosts_vars
tasks:
- name: Print softwares to install
  debug: msg="Softwares installed on {{ item.key }} are: {{ item.value.to_install }}"
  with_dict:
    - "{{ clients }}"

but this would print to_install of both clients. I could also refer to the client explicitly (for example with cl1 in place of key) but the number of clients defined in host_vars will change every time. How could I refer to the values in to_install of a specific client only? thanks

Answer 1

I think, you are looking something like this:

---
clients:
  cl1:
    name: My-First-Machine
    to_install:
      - value11
      - value21
    to_uninstall:
      - value31
  cl3:
    name: My-Second-Machine
    to_install:
    - value12
    - value22
    - value32
    to_uninstall:
    - value42

and then in your playbook something like this:

  tasks:
    - debug:
        msg: "Softwares installed on {{ clients[machine].name }} are: {{ clients[machine].to_install }}"

Then you can use your playbook like this for cl1 machine:

ansible-playbook -i hosts test.yml -e "machine=cl1"

will give you the result like this:

ok: [localhost] => {
    "msg": "Softwares installed on My-First-Machine are: [u'value11', u'value21']"
}

PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=1    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0

Also you can use your playbook like this for cl3 machine:

ansible-playbook -i hosts test.yml -e "machine=cl3" 

will give you the result like this:

PLAY [local] *******************************************************************

TASK [debug] *******************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
    "msg": "Softwares installed on My-Second-Machine are: [u'value12', u'value22', u'value32']"
}

PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=1    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0

Hope that might help you.