# Dynamic Inventory Script - Groups in Groups **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [August 19, 2019, 6:12pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/dynamic-inventory-script-groups-in-groups/31074 "2019-08-19T18:12:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![A\_Drew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d78d45/32.png) [@A\_Drew](https://forum.ansible.com/u/A_Drew)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 6:12pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/dynamic-inventory-script-groups-in-groups/31074/1 "2019-08-19T18:12:54Z")
Hello, I am running into a problem with trying to create Dynamic Inventories via a Python Script, when the structure has Groups that belong to Groups. If I just have a list of servers in each group, I do not have any problems. Here is an INI example of what I need to create: For example, here is what the INI version of my inventory would look likeL [cell\_test\_1] unix1 unix9 [cell\_test\_2] unix2 unix10 [Test:children] cell\_test\_1 cell\_test\_2 My script is able to generate either yaml or jason. The output or each look like: YAML Test: children: cell\_test\_1: hosts: - unix1 - unix9 cell\_test\_2: hosts: - unix2 - unix10 JSON{“test”: {“children”: {“cell\_test\_1”: {“hosts”: [“unix1”, “unix9”]}, “cell\_test\_2”: {“hosts”: [“unix2”, “unix10”]}}, “vars”: null}} Feeding in either into Tower produces the output of: 2.060 INFO Updating inventory 94: xx\_Test\_Inventory 2 2.112 DEBUG Using system install of ansible-inventory CLI: /usr/bin/ansible-inventory 3 2.112 INFO Reading Ansible inventory source: /tmp/awx\_45115\_aZ12p6/tmpYrrkcr 4 2.123 DEBUG Using provided directory ‘/tmp/awx\_45115\_aZ12p6’ for isolation. 5 2.123 DEBUG Running from `/tmp/awx_45115_aZ12p6` working directory. 6 3.154 INFO Processing JSON output… 7 3.154 DEBUG Loaded group: all 8 3.154 DEBUG Loaded group: Test 9 3.155 DEBUG Adding child group Test to parent all 10 3.155 DEBUG Loaded group: cell\_test\_1 11 3.155 DEBUG Adding child group cell\_test\_1 to parent Test 12 3.155 DEBUG Loaded group: cell\_test\_2 13 3.155 DEBUG Adding child group cell\_test\_2 to parent Test 14 3.155 DEBUG Adding child group Test to parent all 15 3.155 DEBUG Adding child group Test to parent all 16 3.155 DEBUG Finished loading from source: /tmp/awx\_45115\_aZ12p6/tmpYrrkcr 17 3.156 DEBUG Removing empty group cell\_test\_1 18 3.156 DEBUG Removing empty group cell\_test\_2 19 3.156 INFO Loaded 1 groups, 0 hosts 20 3.324 DEBUG Group “test” deleted 21 3.330 DEBUG Inventory variables unmodified 22 3.364 DEBUG Group “Test” added 23 3.485 INFO Inventory import completed for AJ\_Test\_WAS\_Inventory in 1.4s Has anyone else run into this problem? Can I get help as to what either format (YAML or JSON) should look like to get the hosts to be added to the cell\_test\_\* groups? Thanks much! ---
**Author:** ![Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kai_Stian_Olstad)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/dynamic-inventory-script-groups-in-groups/31074/2 "2019-08-19T18:42:31Z")
The format is in the documentation [https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/dev\_guide/developing\_inventory.html](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/dev_guide/developing_inventory.html) ---
**Author:** ![A\_Drew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d78d45/32.png) [@A\_Drew](https://forum.ansible.com/u/A_Drew)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 6:49pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/dynamic-inventory-script-groups-in-groups/31074/3 "2019-08-19T18:49:16Z")
I don’t mean to be dumb, but I read the document page you indicated, and the example formats I have provide appear to me to fit into what is says should work, yet they are not. This is why I posted the question. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kai_Stian_Olstad)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 7:17pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/dynamic-inventory-script-groups-in-groups/31074/4 "2019-08-19T19:17:03Z")
Most people posting on the list don't read documentation, so I though this was the case now also. sorry about that. Since you have a ini file, put that in a file called inv.yml and then run   ansible-inventory -i inv.yml --list Then you'll getting the output Ansible expect from a inventory script. ---
**Author:** ![A\_Drew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d78d45/32.png) [@A\_Drew](https://forum.ansible.com/u/A_Drew)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 7:20pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/dynamic-inventory-script-groups-in-groups/31074/5 "2019-08-19T19:20:49Z")
Normally, I would. However, for this specific case of our, we are reading a database to generate the list of servers, so to prevent having to maintain the list of servers in 2 places, we are using a script to read the database and generate the JSON output. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kai_Stian_Olstad)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/dynamic-inventory-script-groups-in-groups/31074/6 "2019-08-19T19:36:49Z")
You wanted to know how the JSON output should be for your ini example. The method I posted will give you that output. So when you have the correct output you can recreate that in your script. I did not mean you should abandon your script and go for ini file. ---
**Author:** ![A\_Drew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d78d45/32.png) [@A\_Drew](https://forum.ansible.com/u/A_Drew)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2019, 4:41pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/dynamic-inventory-script-groups-in-groups/31074/7 "2019-08-21T16:41:19Z")
FYI I finally figured out a way to handle the structure. A big note, for me, when I created a JSON item, if I ran it through a ‘json.dumps’ command, to validate, it would actually create an object that Tower did not like. However, if I just created a JSON string that was fine. Thanks!