Vagrant Ansible dynamic inventory

This script is designed to act as an Ansible dynamic inventory, each time it is run a instantaneous representation of the current Vagrant environment is returned.

Note: This script is a proof-of-concept! Please submit feedback if you encounter any errors or have suggestions.

This script is designed for use in BAS projects, but should be useful generally, though some features will not work.

Features

• Represents the current Vagrant environment as an Ansible inventory using hosts and groups
• For hosts, automatically generates Fully Qualified Domain Names if desired
• For hosts, automatically includes the required identity file to connect to a host using SSH
• For groups, automatically creates groups for the Manager (i.e. Vagrant) and the Provider (i.e. Virtualbox)
• For groups, if using compatible hostname's for each host, creates groups based on the Project, Environment and Purpose

The groups based on the hostname, are designed for projects that follow BAS conventions for hostname's. Following this convention is optional, but if not followed these groups cannot be created. See the WSR-1 hostnames section for more information.

Example output:

# vagrant - Ansible dynamic inventory
# The contents of this inventory are generated by a script, do not modify manually
# Source: /Users/felnne/Projects/WebApps/Pristine/Vagrantfile

## Hosts
pristine-dev-node1.v.m ansible_ssh_private_key_file='/Users/felnne/Projects/WebApps/Web-Applications-Project-Template/.vagrant/machines/pristine-dev-node1/vmware_fusion/private_key'
pristine-dev-node2


## Groups
[vagrant]
pristine-dev-node1.v.m

[vmware_desktop]
pristine-dev-node1.v.m

[pristine]
pristine-dev-node1.v.m

[dev]
pristine-dev-node1.v.m

[node]
pristine-dev-node1.v.m

Requirements

• PHP 5.3 +

• An existing Vagrant environment

Installation

Place vagrant-dynamic-inventory and vagrant-dynamic-inventory.ini in a suitable location in your project, e.g. provisioning/inventories.

Make sure to grant execute permissions to the script:

$ chmod +x provisioning/inventories/vagrant-dynamic-inventory

Setup

Configuration file

Edit vagrant-dynamic-inventory.ini, and change the following options as needed:

• working_directory (string) - Path that contains the 'Vagrantfile' to be used as the input for this script

• fqdn_domain (string) - For building Fully Qualified Domain Names, the domain name to append to each hostname

• debug (bool) - Provide extra information on how input from Vagrant is used in the script

Note: This configuration file MUST be located next to the vagrant-dynamic-inventory script and cannot be renamed.

Note: If debug = true the output of this script will not be a valid Ansible inventory.

Example configuration file:

; Settings for Vagrant Dynamic Inventory script

[General]

; Path that contains the 'Vagrantfile' to be used as the input for this script
; Typically this script will be in 'provisioning/inventories and the 'Vagrantfile' in the project root
; Default value: '../../'
working_directory = '/Users/felnne/Projects/WebApps/Pristine/'

; For building Fully Qualified Domain Names, the domain name to append to each hostname
; Default value: '.test'
fqdn_domain = '.v.m'

; Provide extra information on how input from Vagrant is used in the script
; Allowed values: true / false
; Default value: false
debug = false

Configure Ansible

Configure Ansible to use this inventory, either using a project ansible.cfg file:

[defaults]
inventory = provisioning/inventories/vagrant-dynamic-inventory

Or pass the location on the command line:

$ ansible-playbook -i provisioning/inventories/vagrant-dynamic-inventory playbook.yml

Alternatively you can use a directory of inventories, useful if you want to define your own groups or in environments with multiple dynamic inventories:

[defaults]
inventory = provisioning/inventories/

Or:

$ ansible-playbook -i provisioning/inventories/ playbook.yml

Note: Ansible will try to use any file in the directory you specify as an inventory.

Ansible has more general information on Ansible inventories and dynamic inventories if needed.

Usage

Now each time Ansible is run, the dynamic inventory script will be called by Ansible. This will get information from Vagrant and provide this to Ansible. No inventory file will be saved by this script, though you can do this for testing purposes if desired.

Note: Vagrant must be running for this script to work

To see what this script produces you can run it directly:

$ provisioning/inventories/vagrant-dynamic-inventory

WSR-1 hostnames

TODO.

Developing

Contributing policy

This project welcomes contributions, see CONTRIBUTING.md for our general policy.

Licence

Copyright 2016 NERC BAS.

Unless stated otherwise, all documentation is licensed under the Open Government License - version 3. All code is licensed under the MIT license.

Copies of these licenses are included within this project.