# Configuring Ansible to run play books through a bastion host on aws/ec2 **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Tags:** aws\ **Created:** [February 5, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/configuring-ansible-to-run-play-books-through-a-bastion-host-on-aws-ec2/14496 "2014-02-05T18:59:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![sivel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/sivel/32/1198_2.png) [@sivel](https://forum.ansible.com/u/sivel)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/configuring-ansible-to-run-play-books-through-a-bastion-host-on-aws-ec2/14496/21 "2014-10-30T19:31:15Z")
I submitted a PR a month or so ago as a possible solution to specifying bastion hosts via an inventory variable: [https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/9122](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/9122) ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan1)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 8:59pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/configuring-ansible-to-run-play-books-through-a-bastion-host-on-aws-ec2/14496/22 "2014-10-30T20:59:47Z")
Commented on Matt’s PR, but I think this is a good start. I have also mentioned recently (today) that adding ansible\_ssh\_args as an inventory variable is also fine with me, to override what might be set in ansible.cfg. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan1)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 8:59pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/configuring-ansible-to-run-play-books-through-a-bastion-host-on-aws-ec2/14496/23 "2014-10-30T20:59:55Z")
i.e. let’s have both, if we want. ---
**Author:** ![Matt\_Davis1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ebca7d/32.png) [@Matt\_Davis1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Matt_Davis1)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/configuring-ansible-to-run-play-books-through-a-bastion-host-on-aws-ec2/14496/24 "2014-11-04T00:15:36Z")
OK, [PR 9477](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/9477) implements bastion host/port/user/key and ssh\_args as inventory vars… ---
**Author:** ![Tennis\_Smith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Tennis\_Smith](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Tennis_Smith)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2014, 9:06pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/configuring-ansible-to-run-play-books-through-a-bastion-host-on-aws-ec2/14496/25 "2014-11-06T21:06:45Z")
Damn. I just thought of something. How will “ansible -m ping \” work? Hope I’ve overlooked something, but that could be a snag. -T ---
**Author:** ![Matt\_Davis3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ad7895/32.png) [@Matt\_Davis3](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Matt_Davis3)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 8:05pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/configuring-ansible-to-run-play-books-through-a-bastion-host-on-aws-ec2/14496/26 "2014-11-24T20:05:15Z")
Sorry for going dark on this thread- I had my notification settings for both GG and Github pointing at a dead work email. I’m sure ping wouldn’t work on a private host out of the box, though I suspect you can probably get it working with delegate\_to (or easily enhance it to work). ---
**Author:** ![Tennis\_Smith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Tennis\_Smith](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Tennis_Smith)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/configuring-ansible-to-run-play-books-through-a-bastion-host-on-aws-ec2/14496/27 "2014-11-25T18:08:20Z")
Np, Matt, Ok. That makes sense. Thanks, -T ---
**Author:** ![igorc](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/igorc/32/5491_2.png) [@igorc](https://forum.ansible.com/u/igorc)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/configuring-ansible-to-run-play-books-through-a-bastion-host-on-aws-ec2/14496/28 "2014-12-26T01:45:44Z")
Matt, doesn’t this prevent you from using ec2 dynamic inventory? For me being unable to dynamically discover instances as they come and go in the VPC is huge limitation. [Previous page](https://forum.ansible.com/t/configuring-ansible-to-run-play-books-through-a-bastion-host-on-aws-ec2/14496.md?page=1)