Ansible iterate from file and populate template

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1

Hello,
I have a template with few variables to be populated, then I am shipping that template populated to a another server.

Here is my playbook :

  • hosts: dev
    become: yes
    become_method: sudo
    vars:
    username: “{{ username }}”
    ad_username: “{{ ad_username }}”
    vhost_id: “{{ vhost_id }}”
    tasks:
  • name: Ansible Template
    template:
    src: /usr/local/cmd-sysadmin/automation/ansible/cmd/files/templates/apache_vhost_api_private_public.j2
    dest: /usr/local/apache2.4/conf/vhosts/v2/{{ vhost_id }}_{{ username }}_apis.vhost.conf
  • name: Add vhost to httpd.conf
    shell: echo “Include conf/vhosts/v2/{{ vhost_id }}_{{ username }}_apis.vhost.conf” >> /usr/local/apache2.4/conf/httpd.conf

It works well if I call it from command line and I pass all variable via -e switch.
Something like : ansible-playbook playbooks/apache/create_new_vhost_from_template_dev.yml -K -e “username=xxxx ad_username=xxxx.xxx vhost_id=60”

As I have too many vhosts to be created, I got a file from where I would like to read content, iterate it, populate variables and push the file.

The file is like this :

5;yyy;yyyyy
70;zzzz;zzz

I can modify the file to include the header, to be , delimited… whatever.

Is there anyone that can explain how to do this?

It’s hard for me to find something like this on the documentation.

Can anyone help?

Thanks

2

Hi Nicola,

As I have too many vhosts to be created, I got a file from where I would
like to read content, iterate it, populate variables and push the file.

The file is like this :
5;yyy;yyyyy
70;zzzz;zzz

I can modify the file to include the header, to be , delimited.. whatever.

Since this is basically a CSV file, you might have a look at the
read_csv module.

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/modules/read_csv_module.html

This is only available in Ansible 2.8 though, for older versions you
might use the csvfile lookup.

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/plugins/lookup/csvfile.html

Regards
Sebastian

3

Hey Sebastian,
thanks for your reply.

But once I read from the csv how do I get the variables populated and how to iterate?

I have something like this now

  • hosts: dev
    become: yes
    become_method: sudo
    vars:
    username: “{{ users.0 }}”
    ad_username: “{{ users.1 }}”
    vhost_id: “{{ users.2 }}”
    tasks:
  • name: Read users from CSV file and return a list
    read_csv:
    path: /home/ncontu/users.csv
    delimiter: ‘;’
    register: users
  • name: Ansible Template
    template:
    src: /usr/local/cmd-sysadmin/automation/ansible/cmd/files/templates/apache_vhost_api_private_public.j2
    dest: /usr/local/apache2.4/conf/vhosts/v2/{{ vhost_id }}_{{ username }}_apis.vhost.conf
    loop: users
  • name: Add vhost to httpd.conf
    shell: echo “Include conf/vhosts/v2/{{ vhost_id }}_{{ username }}_apis.vhost.conf” >> /usr/local/apache2.4/conf/httpd.conf
    loop: users
4

I found the way to loop and get variables.

Thanks a lot

5

It's a common courtesy to also provide the solution.

Think about the next person that has the same challenge as you only to find your post that basically only say solved it.

6

That’s exactly what I’m looking for: how he solved his issue. Unfortunately, he only wanted to solve his problem, but he didn’t care about others having the same problem