Here I am again with Ansible ’s local facts , but this time on Windows nodes, where the local facts behave differently.

Local fact files on Unix/Linux must be named *.fact irrespective of whether they contain INI or JSON or whether they are executable programs which emit JSON, and they are searched for in a default fact_path which is typically /etc/ansible/facts.d (or /usr/local/etc/ansible/facts.d on BSD systems).

There’s no default fact directory for Windows nodes, but we specify one with the fact_path parameter to the setup module or in an ansible.cfg file:

[defaults]nocows=1fact_path=c:/users/r1/facts

That directory must exist and it MUST contain PowerShell ( *.ps1 ) files which output objects which will be formatted as JSON by Ansible . Here’s an example containing a static object:

@{username='janej'lat=48.856826lon=2.292713}

When Ansible’s setup module runs, we obtain the following fact from the Windows node:

"ansible_os_family":"Windows","ansible_osm":{"lat":48.856826,"lon":2.292713,"username":"janej"}

Note that Ansible places these objects alongside other Ansible facts, whereas on Unix, if I have a JSON file /etc/ansible/facts.d/osm.fact , Ansible returns osm nested under ansible_local :

"ansible_os_family":"Darwin","ansible_local":{"osm":{"lat":48.856826,"lon":2.292713,"username":"janej"}}

dynamic

On Unix/Linux *.fact files may be executable and return JSON, so I install my program as /etc/ansible/facts.d/hungry.fact

$/etc/ansible/facts.d/hungry.fact
{"id":4,"meal":"dinner","dish":"tikka masala"}

The utility is executed during setup and the result is:

"ansible_local":{"hungry":{"dish":"tikka masala","id":4,"meal":"dinner"},"osm":{"lat":48.856826,"lon":2.292713,"username":"janej"}}

On Windows nodes fact files MUST be *.ps1 so I figure out^W^W google how to invoke a program from a PowerShell script and produce this masterpiece in a file called currybeer.ps1 :

Invoke-Expression"& `"C:\Users\r1\facts\hungry.exe`"  /run /exit /SilentMode"

Sadly, that doesn’t do what I thought it would: the PowerShell script is returning a string:

"ansible_currybeer":"{\"id\":4,\"meal\":\"dinner\",\"dish\":\"tikka masala\"}"

A bit more figuring out later, I add | ConvertFrom-Json to the .ps1 script, and Ansible correctly interprets its output:

"ansible_currybeer":{"dish":"tikka masala","id":4,"meal":"dinner"},"ansible_osm":{"lat":48.856826,"lon":2.292713,"username":"janej"},

I can now use these facts like any others:

-hosts:wingather_facts:truetasks:-debug:msg="{{ ansible_currybeer.dish }} for {{ ansible_currybeer.meal }}"

and look forward to this evening:

TASK [debug] *************************
ok: [192.168.1.163] => {
    "msg": "tikka masala for dinner"
}

I don’t know why Ansible nests local facts differently on Windows nodes, and I don’t see an advantage in doing so.

And if you need inspiration, we’re collecting ideas for using local facts

Značky: #Network