# How to make existing host to be managed by inventory source

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-existing-host-to-be-managed-by-inventory-source/38369>\
**Category:** AWX Project\
**Created:** [August 24, 2023, 12:07pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-existing-host-to-be-managed-by-inventory-source/38369 "2023-08-24T12:07:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![anil\_reddy](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/anil_reddy/32/8043_2.png) [@anil\_reddy](https://forum.ansible.com/u/anil_reddy)\
**Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 12:07pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-existing-host-to-be-managed-by-inventory-source/38369/1 "2023-08-24T12:07:51Z")

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Hi All,

We have a lot of inventories in production for different organizations.

We are planning to manage them using inventory source using the data from our CMDB.

We have written a script for that and it is working in development env.

The problem I have now is, that in production hosts are already present in the inventory.

So even if I set up inventory source on that inventory, the sync will not work on those already added hosts.

So is there any option to make sync understand that it should manage the existing hosts as well?

Regards,  
Anil

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**Author:** ![AWX\_Project](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@AWX\_Project](https://forum.ansible.com/u/AWX_Project)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2023, 6:03pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-existing-host-to-be-managed-by-inventory-source/38369/2 "2023-08-25T18:03:37Z")

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Can you elaborate on your problem a little more? By default, hosts in the inventory that are NOT part of the inventory source will still remain in the inventory after sync.

In the inventory source page, there are “Overwrite” and “Overwrite variables” toggle buttons. If overwrite is checked, those extra hosts WILL be removed.

AWX Team

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anil\_reddy](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/anil_reddy/32/8043_2.png) [@anil\_reddy](https://forum.ansible.com/u/anil_reddy)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2023, 6:07pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-make-existing-host-to-be-managed-by-inventory-source/38369/3 "2023-08-25T18:07:39Z")

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Hi

We have 10000+ plus servers added to inventory manually.

Now we need them to be managed through inventory source.

So if the host added manually is not found in the source, it should be removed. But it is not getting removed because those hosts are added manually.

So how can we make those hosts to be managed by the sync.

Regards  
Anil
