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In some ansible roles (e.g. roles/my-role/) I've got quite some big default variables files (defaults/main.yml). I'd like to split the main.yml into several smaller files. Is it possible to do that?
I've tried creating the files defaults/1.yml and defaults/2.yml, but they aren't loaded by ansible.
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yml exists, Ansible adds the tasks in that file to the play. If roles/x/handlers/main. yml exists, Ansible adds the handlers in that file to the play. If roles/x/vars/main. yml exists, Ansible adds the variables in that file to the play.
According to Ansible's definition, the difference between defaults and vars is: defaults mean “default variables for the roles” and vars mean “other variables for the role”. The priority of the vars is higher than that of defaults.
Ansible role is a set of tasks to configure a host to serve a certain purpose like configuring a service. Roles are defined using YAML files with a predefined directory structure. A role directory structure contains directories: defaults, vars, tasks, files, templates, meta, handlers.
Ansible will look here when we want to use our new role in a playbook later in this tutorial. Within this directory we will define roles that can be reused across multiple playbooks and different servers. Each role that we will create requires its own directory.
The feature I'm describing below has been available since Ansible 2.6, but got a bugfix in v2.6.2 and another (minor) one in v2.7.
To see a solution for older versions, see Paul's answer.
defaults/main/Instead of creating defaults/main.yml, create a directory — defaults/main/ — and place all YAML files in there.
defaults/main.yml → defaults/main/*.yml
Ansible will load any *.yml file inside that directory, so you can name your files like roles/my-role/defaults/main/{1,2}.yml.
Note, the old file — defaults/main.yml — must not exist. See this Github comment.
vars/main/By the way, the above solution also works for vars/:
vars/main.yml → vars/main/*.yml
The feature has been introduced in v2.6 — git commit, Pull Request, main Github issue.
There have been two bugfixes:
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If you aren't using 2.6 (which you probably should, but I understand that isn't always an option), then you might find include_vars useful.
- name: Include vars of stuff.yaml into the 'stuff' variable (2.2).
include_vars:
file: stuff.yaml
name: stuff
- name: Conditionally decide to load in variables into 'plans' when x is 0, otherwise do not. (2.2)
include_vars:
file: contingency_plan.yaml
name: plans
when: x == 0
- name: Load a variable file based on the OS type, or a default if not found. Using free-form to specify the file.
include_vars: "{{ item }}"
with_first_found:
- "{{ ansible_distribution }}.yaml"
- "{{ ansible_os_family }}.yaml"
- default.yaml
- name: Bare include (free-form)
include_vars: myvars.yaml
- name: Include all .json and .jsn files in vars/all and all nested directories (2.3)
include_vars:
dir: vars/all
extensions:
- json
- jsn
- name: Include all default extension files in vars/all and all nested directories and save the output in test. (2.2)
include_vars:
dir: vars/all
name: test
- name: Include default extension files in vars/services (2.2)
include_vars:
dir: vars/services
depth: 1
- name: Include only files matching bastion.yaml (2.2)
include_vars:
dir: vars
files_matching: bastion.yaml
Note that this is a task directive, though. It isn't as neat as just being able to include it into the defaults file itself.
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