Ansible can use conditionals to execute tasks or plays when certain conditions are met.
To implement a conditional, the when statement must be used, followed by the condition to test. The condition is expressed using one of the available operators like e.g. for comparison:
| == | Compares two objects for equality. |
| != | Compares two objects for inequality. |
| > | true if the left hand side is greater than the right hand side. |
| >= | true if the left hand side is greater or equal to the right hand side. |
| < | true if the left hand side is lower than the right hand side. |
| <= | true if the left hand side is lower or equal to the right hand side. |
There are many options to control execution flow in Ansible. More examples of supported conditionals can be located here: http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/dev/templates/#comparisons
As an example you would like to install an FTP server, but only on hosts that are in the ftpserver inventory group.
To do that, first edit the inventory to add another group, and place node2 in it. Make sure that the IP address of node2 is always the same when node2 is listed. Edit the inventory ~/lab_inventory/hosts to look like the following listing:
[all:vars]
ansible_user=student<GUID>
ansible_ssh_pass=xxx
ansible_port=22
[web]
node1 ansible_host=11.22.33.44
node2 ansible_host=22.33.44.55
node3 ansible_host=33.44.55.66
[ftpserver]
node2 ansible_host=22.33.44.55
[control]
ansible ansible_host=44.55.66.77
Next create the file ftpserver.yml on your control host in the ~/ansible-files/ directory:
---
- name: Install vsftpd on ftpservers
hosts: all
become: yes
tasks:
- name: Install FTP server when host in ftpserver group
ansible.builtin.yum:
name: vsftpd
state: latest
when: inventory_hostname in groups["ftpserver"]
By now you should know how to run Ansible Playbooks, we’ll start to be less verbose in this guide. Go create and run it. :-)
Run it and examine the output. The expected outcome: The task is skipped on node1, node3 and the ansible host (your control host) because they are not in the ftpserver group in your inventory file.
TASK [Install FTP server when host in ftpserver group] *******************************************
skipping: [ansible]
skipping: [node1]
skipping: [node3]
changed: [node2]
Sometimes when a task does make a change to the system, an additional task or tasks may need to be run. For example, a change to a service’s configuration file may then require that the service be restarted so that the changed configuration takes effect.
Here Ansible’s handlers come into play. Handlers can be seen as inactive tasks that only get triggered when explicitly invoked using the notify statement. Read more about them in the Ansible Handlers documentation.
As a an example, let’s write a Playbook that:
manages Apache’s configuration file httpd.conf on all hosts in the web group
restarts Apache when the file has changed
First we need the file Ansible will deploy, let’s just take the one from node1. Remember to replace the IP address shown in the listing below with the IP address from your individual node1.
[ec2-user@autoctl1 ansible-files]$ scp 11.22.33.44:/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf ~/ansible-files/
httpd.conf
Next, create the Playbook httpd_conf.yml. Make sure that you are in the directory ~/ansible-files.
---
- name: manage httpd.conf
hosts: web
become: yes
tasks:
- name: Copy Apache configuration file
ansible.builtin.copy:
src: httpd.conf
dest: /etc/httpd/conf/
notify:
- restart_apache
handlers:
- name: restart_apache
ansible.builtin.service:
name: httpd
state: restarted
So what’s new here?
The notify section calls the handler only when the copy task actually changes the file. That way the service is only restarted if needed - and not each time the playbook is run.
The handlers section defines a task that is only run on notification.
Run the Playbook. We didn’t change anything in the file yet so there should not be any changed lines in the output and of course the handler shouldn’t have fired.
Listen 80 line in httpd.conf to:Listen 8080
Run the Playbook again. Now Ansible’s output should be a lot more interesting:
httpd.conf should have been copied over
The handler should have restarted Apache
Apache should now listen on port 8080. Easy enough to verify:
[ec2-user@autoctl1 ansible-files]$ curl http://22.33.44.55
curl: (7) Failed connect to 22.33.44.55:80; Connection refused
[ec2-user@autoctl1 ansible-files]$ curl http://22.33.44.55:8080
<body>
<h1>This is a production webserver, take care!</h1>
</body>
Feel free to change the httpd.conf file again and run the Playbook.
Loops enable us to repeat the same task over and over again. For example, lets say you want to create multiple users. By using an Ansible loop, you can do that in a single task. Loops can also iterate over more than just basic lists. For example, if you have a list of users with their corresponding group, loop can iterate over them as well. Find out more about loops in the Ansible Loops documentation.
To show the loops feature we will generate three new users on node1. For that, create the Playbook loop_users.yml in ~/ansible-files on your control node as your student user and run it. We will use the user module to generate the user accounts.
---
- name: Ensure users
hosts: node1
become: yes
tasks:
- name: Ensure three users are present
ansible.builtin.user:
name: "{{ item }}"
state: present
loop:
- dev_user
- qa_user
- prod_user
Lines starting with a variable need to be quoted.
Understand the playbook and the output:
The names are not provided to the user module directly. Instead, there is only a variable called {{ item }} for the parameter name.
The loop keyword lists the actual user names. Those replace the {{ item }} during the actual execution of the playbook.
During execution the task is only listed once, but there are three changes listed underneath it.
As mentioned loops can also be over lists of hashes. Imagine that the users should be assigned to different additional groups:
- username: dev_user
groups: ftp
- username: qa_user
groups: ftp
- username: prod_user
groups: apache
The user module has the optional parameter groups to list additional users. To reference items in a hash, the {{ item }} keyword needs to reference the subkey: {{ item.groups }} for example.
Let’s rewrite the playbook to create the users with additional user rights:
---
- name: Ensure users
hosts: node1
become: yes
tasks:
- name: Ensure three users are present
ansible.builtin.user:
name: "{{ item.username }}"
state: present
groups: "{{ item.groups }}"
loop:
- { username: 'dev_user', groups: 'ftp' }
- { username: 'qa_user', groups: 'ftp' }
- { username: 'prod_user', groups: 'apache' }
Check the output:
Verify that the user prod_user was indeed created on node1:
[ec2-user@autoctl1 ansible-files]$ ansible node1 -m command -a "id dev_user"
node1 | CHANGED | rc=0 >>
uid=1002(dev_user) gid=1002(dev_user) groups=1002(dev_user),50(ftp)