# How to organize hosts and the problem with vars

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-organize-hosts-and-the-problem-with-vars/17928>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** ubuntu\
**Created:** [April 8, 2015, 12:39pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-organize-hosts-and-the-problem-with-vars/17928 "2015-04-08T12:39:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ruben\_Ortiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9a28c/32.png) [@Ruben\_Ortiz](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Ruben_Ortiz)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2015, 12:39pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-organize-hosts-and-the-problem-with-vars/17928/1 "2015-04-08T12:39:33Z")

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Hi

maybe it’s a silly question but I have been working with ansible since a year ago and still not comfortable with I organize my hosts. My scenario is quite easy, you’ll see:

- we have lot of ubuntu servers, most of them are: or apache, or sql, or lamp (apache+sql)
- some of servers are pre and others pro environment

so when I have to create (provisioning) a new machine I do some steps as create vm, setup fqdn and ip, add new fqdn to my ansible inventory and run playbook.

Problem: I have lot of ubuntu servers, how is the best to organize them in my inventory?

[hosts:children]  
vm

[vm:children]  
ubuntu

[ubuntu:children]  
webservers  
database  
lamp

so I have the hosts “[lamp1.example.com](http://lamp1.example.com)” which is a apache, php and sql vps…in which group I will allocate this new hosts?

Webserver? well, lamp1 it’s a webserver (apache) so it’r right  
Database? it has a mysql instance so is also an database  
lamp? of course, it’s a lamp vps so lamp group also is appropiated

Now this is my first problem…then the second. I have the group\_vars folder which playbook.yml will look when a ansible recipe is executed. I have a role called fail2ban. I want to apply some variables to “all” groups for this role but for the apache servers I also want to setup another vars:

# file group\_vars/apache

fail2ban\_services:

- name: ssh  
port: ssh  
filter: sshd  
logpath: /var/log/auth.log
- name: apache  
port: http,https  
filter: apache-auth  
logpath: /var/log/apache\*/\*error.log  
maxretry: 6

# file group\_vars/all

fail2ban\_services:

- name: ssh  
port: ssh  
filter: sshd  
logpath: /var/log/auth.log

this is related with the first problem, I have to organize the hosts in a proper way for later be sure the vars will be applied correctly.

How you will fix this problem? Meantime, I have removed lot of groups to simplify my inventory. Now I just divide my host between ubuntu and centos and the role of hosts: webserver, database, lamp, lemp, etc

Any comment is highly appreciated!

Thanks!