how to best accomodate different default values for variables in a role. eg list of ports to open may change when a new version of the software (= role ) is installed

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1

Sorry of the subject is not very descriptive. Let me be more explicit here

I have a role that installs a piece of software at version N. this role by default open ports number x and y in the firewall. This list of ports is defined in /default/main.yml

Now I want to install version N+1 of the same software and version N+1 requires ports x, y and z to be open in the firewall but other than that, everything remains the same

I am not sure what the best practice is here

Of course, I am asking because would like to avoid to create a role for each version of the software just because the list of ports changes

How do you guys generally address this type of question

Thank you
Christophe

2

I’m not much of an expert but I have done similar things based on OS version which can be done by having a task for each version then using ‘when’ conditionals and using the ansible OS version fact.
In a similar way if you could assign the version number to a variable you could base it off that

E.g

  • name: Add ssh public key file - RedHat
    lineinfile:
    dest: /home/user/.ssh/authorized_keys
    line: “{{ keyvar }}”
    state: present
    create: yes
    owner: user
    group: user
    mode: 0640
    when: ansible_distribution == ‘RedHat’
    become: yes
3

Well, this is not what I want. I dont want to modify the tasks everytime the list of ports changes. I guess the answer is by using some include statement (which will include a file containing the version specific list of ports). I am just wondering where this include file should be included. What the best place is for doing this include (eg inside /defaults/main.yml vs playbooks using the role, etc…)

4

Hi Chris,

Well, this is not what I want. I dont want to modify the tasks everytime
the list of ports changes. I guess the answer is by using some include
statement (which will include a file containing the version specific list
of ports). I am just wondering where this include file should be included.
What the best place is for doing this include (eg inside
<role>/defaults/main.yml vs playbooks using the role, etc...)

An option would be to use "include_vars" in a task, that suits
your purpose best (for example tasks/main.yml)

- name: Add {{ package_version }} specific variables
  include_vars: "{{ package_version }}.yml"

And put the files {{ package_version }}.yml into the vars/
directory.

Then the variable package_version controls what's going to be
installed. You might want to specify the default
package_version in defaults/.

HTH, Cheers,

  -vlado

5

It looks good, thank you