Creating users & groups with vars - not working

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1

Trying to create users and groups with vars inline…this is not working…what am I missing here?

— # Users and Groups

  • hosts: localhost
    become: yes
    vars:
    groups:
  • devops
  • dbadbmins
  • serveradmins

users:

  • frank

  • joe

  • dave
    tasks:

  • name: Create groups
    group:
    name: “{{ item.groups }}”
    state: present
    with_items: “{{groups}}”
    ignore_errors: yes

  • name: Create users
    user:
    name: “{{ item.user }}”
    state: present
    with_items: “{{users}}”

Output -

PLAY [localhost] *********************************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] ***************************************************************
ok: [localhost]

TASK [Create groups] *****************************************************************
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! => {“failed”: true, “msg”: “the field ‘args’ has an invalid value, which appears to include a variable that is undefined. The error was: ‘ansible.vars.unsafe_proxy.AnsibleUnsafeText object’ has no attribute ‘groups’\n\nThe error appears to have been in ‘/etc/ansible/playbooks/usersgroups.yml’: line 15, column 7, but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.\n\nThe offending line appears to be:\n\n tasks:\n - name: Create groups\n ^ here\n”}
…ignoring

TASK [Create users] ******************************************************************
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! => {“failed”: true, “msg”: “the field ‘args’ has an invalid value, which appears to include a variable that is undefined. The error was: ‘ansible.vars.unsafe_proxy.AnsibleUnsafeText object’ has no attribute ‘user’\n\nThe error appears to have been in ‘/etc/ansible/playbooks/usersgroups.yml’: line 22, column 7, but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.\n\nThe offending line appears to be:\n\n\n - name: Create users\n ^ here\n”}
to retry, use: --limit @/etc/ansible/playbooks/usersgroups.retry

2

You are trying to access item.groups, but there is not item.groups. The groupname is item itself. The same thing for item.user!

Just change item.groups to item and item.user to item

3

To put Daniel's response into clear example:

  - name: Create groups
      group:
        name: "{{ item }}"
        state: present
      with_items: "{{groups}}"
      ignore_errors: yes

    - name: Create users
      user:
        name: "{{ item }}"
        state: present
      with_items: "{{users}}"

4

Thanks Brian!

5

Thanks. It works but only if I swap with_items: “{{groups}}” for with_items: “{{grouplist}}”

and call my vars grouplist also. Something it didnt like about calling those 2 groups

6

i should have noticed, 'groups' is a reserved var, which has a
dictionary with the inventory groups and the hosts that belong to
them.

No matter what you set, the 'groups' from Ansible will overwrite it.