host_overrides

Synopsis

Provide a list of host overriding values, to modify an existing inventory.

Typically used to patch an Ansible inventory (see ansible_inventory_file) with some new values

Attributes

Each item of the list has the following attributes:

Name	req?	Description
name	yes	The name of the host to patch. Must be an existing host. Also may be 'all' or '*' to patch all hosts.
force_setup	no	A common Ansible problem is when referencing host info for a host which has not being accessed, so there is no fact grabbed for it. Setting this flag to yes will trigger an access to this host at the begining of the play.
ssh_host	no	Allow to override ssh_host
ssh_user	no	Allow to override ssh_user
ssh_private_key_file	no	Allow to override ssh_private_key_file
ssh_password	no	Allow to override ssh_password. This may be encrypted. Refer to encrypted variables
ssh_port	no	Allow to override ssh_port
ssh_extra_args	no	Allow to override ssh_extra_args
ssh_common_args	no	Allow to override ssh_common_args
sftp_extra_args	no	Allow to override sftp_extra_args
scp_extra_args	no	Allow to override scp_extra_args
ssh_pipelining	no	Allow to override ssh_pipelining
ssh_executable	no	Allow to override ssh_executable
become	no	Allow to override become
become_method	no	Allow to override become_method
become_user	no	Allow to override become_user
become_pass	no	Allow to override become_pass. This may be encrypted. Refer to encrypted variables
become_exe	no	Allow to override become_exe
priority	no	An integer number allowing to order overriding in case of multiple host_override on the same host(s). See example below. Default: 100
when	no	Boolean. Allow conditional deployment of this item. Default True

To suppress an attribute, set it to empty string: ''

Examples

We want to address a VM built using Vagrant. For this, we can use the Vagrant generated ansible inventory. Such inventory instruct HADeploy to access the VM under the vagrantaccount. So, we need to instruct HADeploy to become rootin order to perform privileged operation.

ansible_inventories: 
- file: "../../iac/vgrvm1/.vagrant/provisioners/ansible/inventory/vagrant_ansible_inventory"

host_overrides:
- name: all
  become_user: root

Of course, this works because the vagrant account has been granted by vagrant with appropriate sudo rights.

This other example change the user for all HADeploy action for all hosts. And authenticate with a (encrypted) password instead of a key:

encrypted_vars:
  deployer_password: |
    $ANSIBLE_VAULT;1.1;AES256
    65626166653134326137613232323336373139393036383532333863623630363662303531306539
    6637306363343836376633353439656634613638643031660a636238323663353337313333663438
    30306234306463626338663637623563393735653237323833323064316561653237393538303762
    6363326232656461310a656631386135663764386565366566633537633665646562626236393462
    6231

host_overrides:
- name: all
  ssh_user: deployer      
  ssh_password: "{{deployer_password}}"
  ssh_private_key_file: ''

Refer to encrypted variables for more information.

Priority

Here is an illustration of the priority attribute usage:

host_overrides:
- name: all
  become_user: root

....  

host_overrides:
- name: all
  become_user: ''
  priority: 110

This will result with become_user not set.

While:

host_overrides:
- name: all
  become_user: root

....  

host_overrides:
- name: all
  become_user: ''
  priority: 90

Will result with become_user set to root. (Default value is 100, so the first one take precedence).

This feature may be usefull when building complex configuration by merging several inventory files.

Tricks

If, when running HADeploy you encounter error like:

fatal: [dn1]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "failed": true, "msg": "AnsibleUndefinedVariable: 'dict object' has no attribute 'ansible_fqdn'"}

it is most likely that you need to set force_setup on some host_group or host.