Get targeted host from schedule/job template via api

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1

Hi,

Is there an easy way to get the targeted hosts of a schedule/job template via the api.

Situation:
I’ve got a lot of inventories subdivided in groups. I’ve got job templates that target hosts by filling in the “limit” (sometimes by prompt). These templates have a schedule to run during specific times in a month. The limit could be set in the schedule. some limits are easy (just one group) others use union and exclusions.

The number of schedules is steadily increasing.

Problems/questions
Due to the increasing nature of templates/schedules it is getting hard to:

Q1:Determine what schedule is targeting what host
Q2 :Determine if a host has been targeted by a job_template/schedule

Manual solution:
Q1
Have a good naming convention so you can determine the group from the schedule name.
Q2:
Open the job template → see the limit → go to inventory → group …

My automated solution:
Via api:
Read all schedules that have a next run in the next 30 days
Get the targeted inventory
get the template/workflow/schedule limit
run ansible-playbook with --list-hosts (on a script server)
parse output (on a script server)
get hosts (on a script server)

create an excel (shows schedule per host or host per schedule

Question: Can this be done faster/easier
This solution works but since part of this needs to be executed with “shell ansible-playbook with --list-hosts” makes it slow

It would be nice if there was an awx api endpoint that just returns the hosts given a limit and an inventory. Does something like this exists:

/api/v2/get_targeted_hosts?inventory_id=X&limit=groupA:groupB!group3

or other suggestions

1 Like
2

I don’t think this is possible with normal inventory

@AlanCoding would constructed inventory fit this usecase?

3

I think a constructed inventory could do this but then you change the “limit” functionality to all and a constructed inventory.
Also this would kind of make the host menu/list a mess since it list host multiple times (the original inventory and every constructed inventory).

I have a working solution as described in the original post. But yet I feel this is a QOL feature that could be most welcome in AWX.

Use cases:

  • If a scheduled tasks would have it’s host known you could add a “future job” on the host level next to the previous jobs.

  • When you launch a template you could list the targeted hosts in the preview section. I should not have to open a second tab and go to inventory → group → hosts to check if this is what I want to target.

PS: OMG its the real TheRealHaoLiu from AWX Office Hours