Inventory Management

INI Inventory File

[web_group]
web01
web02

[db_group]
db01 ansible_host = 192.168.0.200

[myapp:children]
web_group
db_group

[web_group:vars]
apache_port = 80

$ ansible-inventory -i hosts --graph

@all:
  |--@myapp:
  |  |--@db_group:
  |  |  |--db01
  |  |--@web_group:
  |  |  |--web01
  |  |  |--web02
  |--@ungrouped:

YAML Inventory File

---
all:
  children:
    local:
      vars:
        ansible_connection: local
      hosts:
        localhost: {}

You can use the ansible-inventory --list --yaml to convert a INI inventory.

Dynamic Inventory

This is especially useful when dealing with a cloud provider or a large pool of servers, or connecting to a Configuration Management Database (CMDB). They are executable files or scripts.

Inventory Directory

You can also set up a directory with multiple inventory files. This is especially useful when you wish to spearate between environments (ex: dev, test, staging, prod) or mix static and dynamic inventories.

Create a directory called inventory and place a line in your ansible.cfg: inventory = ./inventory.

---
all:
  children:
    local:
      vars:
        ansible_connection: local
      hosts:
        localhost: {}

---
all:
  children:
    centos:
      hosts:
        centos8: {}
        centos7: {}
    fedora:
      hosts:
        fedora31: {}
    rhel:
      hosts:
        rhel81: {}