# Are ansible\_user in inventory vs remote\_user in playbook equivalent?

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/are-ansible-user-in-inventory-vs-remote-user-in-playbook-equivalent/19479>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [October 11, 2015, 5:15am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/are-ansible-user-in-inventory-vs-remote-user-in-playbook-equivalent/19479 "2015-10-11T05:15:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![techraf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@techraf](https://forum.ansible.com/u/techraf)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 5:15am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/are-ansible-user-in-inventory-vs-remote-user-in-playbook-equivalent/19479/1 "2015-10-11T05:15:34Z")

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I am trying to run an Anisble playbook against a server on an account other than the one I am logged on the control machine. I tried to specify an `ansible_user` in the inventory file according to the documentation on [Inventory](http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/intro_inventory.html), however it does not work the way I expected.

On the other hand adding a `remote_user` argument to the playbook worked for me.

Are the `ansible_user` in inventory file and `remote_user` in playbook for different purposed? What is the `ansible_user` used for? Or why doesn’t Ansible observe the setting in the inventory?

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**Author:** ![Brian\_Coca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@Brian\_Coca](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Coca)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2015, 11:56pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/are-ansible-user-in-inventory-vs-remote-user-in-playbook-equivalent/19479/2 "2015-10-23T23:56:08Z")

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they are the same, but ansible\_user is only a 2.0 thing, in older  
versions its ansible\_ssh\_user