# Ansible not pulling in group\_vars

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-not-pulling-in-group-vars/18894>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [July 29, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-not-pulling-in-group-vars/18894 "2015-07-29T20:24:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![datsun80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@datsun80](https://forum.ansible.com/u/datsun80)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-not-pulling-in-group-vars/18894/1 "2015-07-29T20:24:31Z")

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I moved my inventory files to their own directory and now the group\_vars are not loading.

Ansible Docs state:  
Tip: In Ansible 1.2 or later the group\_vars/ and host\_vars/ directories can exist in either the playbook directory OR the inventory directory. If both paths exist, variables in the playbook directory will override variables set in the inventory directory.

My current layout is as follows:

├── hosts  
│ └── dev  
│ └── qa

├── group\_vars  
│ ├── all  
│ └── dev  
│ └── qa

├── roles

├── site.yml

What am I missing? If I move the inventory files back to the main directory with site.yml Ansible correctly pickups the group\_vars.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![senorsmile](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/senorsmile/32/9024_2.png) [@senorsmile](https://forum.ansible.com/u/senorsmile)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:11pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-not-pulling-in-group-vars/18894/2 "2015-07-29T23:11:25Z")

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How are you setting the inventory (I assume the hosts folder contain your inventory files). Give us a sample of what’s in the inventory files?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![datsun80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@datsun80](https://forum.ansible.com/u/datsun80)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 1:21pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-not-pulling-in-group-vars/18894/3 "2015-07-30T13:21:39Z")

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Yes, the hosts folder contains the inventory files.

I am calling it like so:  
ansible-playbook -i hosts/qa -t redis site.yml

In the inventory file I have:

```auto
- name: Redis Server
  hosts: redis
  sudo: yes
  roles:
    - { role: redis, tags: ['redis'] }

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Guy\_Matz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/57b2e6/32.png) [@Guy\_Matz](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Guy_Matz)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 3:29pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-not-pulling-in-group-vars/18894/4 "2015-07-30T15:29:08Z")

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Is that your inventory? Or your site.yml?

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**Author:** ![datsun80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@datsun80](https://forum.ansible.com/u/datsun80)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 3:32pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-not-pulling-in-group-vars/18894/5 "2015-07-30T15:32:25Z")

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Yes, I mistyped. This is in my site.yml file:

```auto
- name: Redis Server
  hosts: redis
  sudo: yes
  roles:
    - { role: redis, tags: ['redis'] }

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![datsun80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@datsun80](https://forum.ansible.com/u/datsun80)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 2:35pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-not-pulling-in-group-vars/18894/6 "2015-08-04T14:35:26Z")

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No ideas?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![gundalow](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/gundalow/32/99_2.png) [@gundalow](https://forum.ansible.com/u/gundalow)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:56pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-not-pulling-in-group-vars/18894/7 "2015-08-04T17:56:21Z")

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Are you using the

[qa:children] notation in your inventory files,  
If so make sure you’ve copied that into the correct files when you split out to use separate inventory files.

[http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/intro\_inventory.html#groups-of-groups-and-group-variables](http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/intro_inventory.html#groups-of-groups-and-group-variables)

[http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks\_best\_practices.html#how-to-differentiate-staging-vs-production](http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_best_practices.html#how-to-differentiate-staging-vs-production)

John

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![datsun80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@datsun80](https://forum.ansible.com/u/datsun80)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:06pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-not-pulling-in-group-vars/18894/8 "2015-08-04T18:06:59Z")

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Yes, my qa inventory has the following:

[redis]  
1.1.1.1

[qa:children]  
redis

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![datsun80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@datsun80](https://forum.ansible.com/u/datsun80)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 2:52pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-not-pulling-in-group-vars/18894/9 "2015-08-06T14:52:11Z")

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I ended up reverting back to my old file structure to continue working on other projects. I just now tried again by moving the inventories to their own directory and to my surprise they are now pulling in the group vars. Not sure what I did before, but it is working now.