# How to loop on a parameter file the play of the playbook **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [April 18, 2016, 9:18am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-loop-on-a-parameter-file-the-play-of-the-playbook/21189 "2016-04-18T09:18:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fanvalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/2bfe46/32.png) [@fanvalt](https://forum.ansible.com/u/fanvalt)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2016, 9:18am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-loop-on-a-parameter-file-the-play-of-the-playbook/21189/1 "2016-04-18T09:18:14Z")
Hello, I would like to use only parameters in my playbook and so to use an external variables file to set the host, user, http parameters etc … so my playbook would loop on it. Is this possible ? Here is an explaination of my needs: I would like noone has to modify the playbook to set the parameters, I want all variables to be external variables. I’d like to give the following informations when playing the playbook: host=server1, user=user1, http\_port=8080, release=1.2 host=server1, user=user2, http\_port=8081, release=2.3 host=server2, user=user1, http\_port=8080, release=2.3 etc … Is using the hosts file a way to do so,are we allowed to set any parameters we want like: [deployed\_server] server1 user=user1 http\_port=8080 release=1.2 server2 user=user1 http\_port=8080 release=2.3 or can we only pass ansible variables in the hosts file ? My purpose would be to allowed a user to create a file in EXcel and to transfer is on the ansible master host and then the playbook would be run with this excel file as an external parameter file. Any clue ? Regards ---
**Author:** ![fanvalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/2bfe46/32.png) [@fanvalt](https://forum.ansible.com/u/fanvalt)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2016, 10:32am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-loop-on-a-parameter-file-the-play-of-the-playbook/21189/2 "2016-04-19T10:32:10Z")
Done, I did use an array to set the parameters in the hosts file