How to set the description for hosts in a dynamic inventory

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1

Hi,

I’m using a dynamic inventory - python that pulls in hosts from a Google Sheet. It all works well, except that the description always appears as ‘imported’. I can manually edit an imported entry to set the description for each (as you can see in the top line), but would like this to be automatic.

inventory.png
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The reason I want this value at the higher level is because the ‘name’ in the first column is a serial number (for uniqueness) and the description is a more human-friendly string.

When I click on a host that shows as ‘imported’ in the description column on the list view, I can see that my description has been put in the extra variables:

inventory2.png
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So I know that there’s a value in there, but it is ending up in the wrong place.
If I browse the API for host 18, I see this:

inventory3.png
inventory3.png1060×257 30.7 KB

My description has become part of the host_vars it seems. The description field in the next level up is ‘imported’.

According to the API docs (https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-tower/latest/html/towerapi/api_ref.html#/Inventories/Inventories_inventories_hosts_create) the description should be settable and is blank by default. Something is obviously setting it to ‘imported’ but I don’t know what that could be.

It feels like inventory.add_host method doesn’t allow the setting of a host description. All you can do is inventory.set_variable which puts the value in the variables list.

If anyone has any ideas, I’d be glad to hear them!

Regards,
Andy

2

Hi!

Can you try “_awx_description” instead of “description” and see if that correctly adds the description to your imported hosts?

Please see https://github.com/ansible/awx/pull/6265

Let us know if that works for ya, we’ll be sure to get proper documentation around this.

AWX Team

3

Thanks very much - that looks like exactly what I was after. It isn’t working for me yet though - is this wrong? I’m still getting ‘Imported’ in the description, and _awx_description is ending up in the host vars:

Update Desc

self.inventory.set_variable(hostname, “_awx_description”, descr)

4

Hi,

Can you let us know which AWX version you are using?

Also, would mind reporting the resulting output when you run your inventory script from the command line? I can’t really tell how your self.inventory.set_variable call is affecting the end result.

Thanks!

AWX Team

5

Hi there,

Thanks - is this output what you need to see?

Kind regards,
Andy

ansible-inventory -i inventory/dev-gsheets.yaml --list -vv
ansible-inventory [core 2.12.4]
config file = /Users/username/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-company/sandbox/ansible-gsheets-inventory/ansible.cfg
configured module search path = [‘/Users/username/.ansible/plugins/modules’, ‘/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules’]
ansible python module location = /Users/username/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-company/sandbox/ansible-gsheets-inventory/.venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/ansible
ansible collection location = /Users/username/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
executable location = /Users/username/sandbox/ansible-gsheets-inventory/.venv/bin/ansible-inventory
python version = 3.8.2 (default, Dec 21 2020, 15:06:04) [Clang 12.0.0 (clang-1200.0.32.29)]
jinja version = 3.1.1
libyaml = True
Using /Users/username/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-company/sandbox/ansible-gsheets-inventory/ansible.cfg as config file
[gsheets] inventory file: /Users/username/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-company/sandbox/ansible-gsheets-inventory/inventory/dev-gsheets.yaml
[gsheets] reading plugin options
[gsheets] checking dependencies
[gsheets] sys path: [‘/Users/username/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-company/sandbox/ansible-gsheets-inventory/.venv/bin’, ‘/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Library/Frameworks/Python3.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python38.zip’, ‘/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Library/Frameworks/Python3.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python3.8’, ‘/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Library/Frameworks/Python3.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python3.8/lib-dynload’, ‘/Users/username/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-company/sandbox/ansible-gsheets-inventory/.venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages’]
[gsheets] dependencies met
[gsheets] fetch API token
[gsheets] opening sheet
[gsheets] sheet opened: 1GacYZXvmEyL08pnZHsB_H5uVGIl8z7qgcjvnVezDuXA
[gsheets] worksheets: [‘TEST1’]
[gsheets] fetching host rows
[gsheets] worksheet opened: TEST1
[gsheets] total rows: 6
[gsheets] total matched hosts: 5
[gsheets] fetching groups
[gsheets] total groups: 7
[gsheets] start adding hosts
[gsheets] adding host: (name=‘FGT60ETK19099QQQ’, address=‘172.29.252.1’, groups=[‘AUS’, ‘RB1’], description=‘AUS_TEST1’)
[gsheets] adding host: (name=‘FGT60ETK19099ZZZ’, address=‘172.29.252.8’, groups=[‘UK’, ‘andy’], description=‘UK_TEST_UK06’)
[gsheets] adding host: (name=‘FGT60ETK19099YYY’, address=‘172.29.252.17’, groups=[‘GERMANY’, ‘RB2’], description=‘GERMANY_TEST_02’)
[gsheets] adding host: (name=‘FGTTESTABC123’, address=‘172.29.255.250’, groups=[‘LAB’], description=‘branch2’)
[gsheets] adding host: (name=‘FGTTESTABC456’, address=‘172.29.255.251’, groups=[‘LAB’, ‘andy’], description=‘branch3’)
[gsheets] finished adding hosts
{
“AUS”: {
“hosts”: [
“FGT60ETK19099QQQ”
]
},
“GERMANY”: {
“hosts”: [
“FGT60ETK19099YYY”
]
},
“LAB”: {
“hosts”: [
“FGTTESTABC123”,
“FGTTESTABC456”
]
},
“RB1”: {
“hosts”: [
“FGT60ETK19099QQQ”
]
},
“RB2”: {
“hosts”: [
“FGT60ETK19099YYY”
]
},
“UK”: {
“hosts”: [
“FGT60ETK19099ZZZ”
]
},
“_meta”: {
“hostvars”: {
“FGT60ETK19099ZZZ”: {
“_awx_description”: “UK_TEST_UK06”,
“ansible_host”: “172.29.252.8”,
“appliance_name”: “UK_TEST_UK06”,
“gsheets_credentials_filepath”: “private/credentials.json”,
“gsheets_sheet_id”: “1GacYZXvmEyGARBAGEB_H5uVGIl8z7qgcjvnVezDuXA”,
“gsheets_worksheet_name”: “TEST1”,
“ipsec_endpoint”: “18.39.191.70”,
“is_automated”: “YES”,
“is_onboarded”: “YES”,
“management_ip”: “172.29.252.8”,
“model”: “FG-60E”,
“rulebase”: “andy”,
“serial”: “FGT60ETK19099ZZZ”,
“wan1_mode”: “FOOBARZ”
},
“FGT60ETK19099YYY”: {
“_awx_description”: “GERMANY_TEST_02”,
“ansible_host”: “172.29.252.17”,
“appliance_name”: “GERMANY_TEST_02”,
“gsheets_credentials_filepath”: “private/credentials.json”,
“gsheets_sheet_id”: “1GacYZXvmEyGARBAGEB_H5uVGIl8z7qgcjvnVezDuXA”,
“gsheets_worksheet_name”: “TEST1”,
“ipsec_endpoint”: “18.39.191.70”,
“is_automated”: “YES”,
“is_onboarded”: “YES”,
“management_ip”: “172.29.252.17”,
“model”: “FG-60E”,
“rulebase”: “RB2”,
“serial”: “FGT60ETK19099YYY”,
“wan1_mode”: “TEST2”
},
“FGT60ETK19099QQQ”: {
“_awx_description”: “AUS_TEST1”,
“ansible_host”: “172.29.252.1”,
“appliance_name”: “AUS_TEST1”,
“gsheets_credentials_filepath”: “private/credentials.json”,
“gsheets_sheet_id”: “1GacYZXvmEyGARBAGEB_H5uVGIl8z7qgcjvnVezDuXA”,
“gsheets_worksheet_name”: “TEST1”,
“ipsec_endpoint”: “18.39.191.70”,
“is_automated”: “NO”,
“is_onboarded”: “YES”,
“management_ip”: “172.29.252.1”,
“model”: “FG-60E”,
“rulebase”: “RB1”,
“serial”: “FGT60ETK19099QQQ”,
“wan1_mode”: “dhcp”
},
“FGTTESTABC123”: {
“_awx_description”: “branch2”,
“ansible_host”: “172.29.255.250”,
“appliance_name”: “branch2”,
“gsheets_credentials_filepath”: “private/credentials.json”,
“gsheets_sheet_id”: “1GacYZXvmEyGARBAGEB_H5uVGIl8z7qgcjvnVezDuXA”,
“gsheets_worksheet_name”: “TEST1”,
“ipsec_endpoint”: “10.210.195.1”,
“is_automated”: “YES”,
“is_onboarded”: “YES”,
“management_ip”: “172.29.255.250”,
“model”: “VM”,
“serial”: “FGTTESTABC123”,
“wan1_mode”: “TEST123”
},
“FGTTESTABC456”: {
“_awx_description”: “branch3”,
“ansible_host”: “172.29.255.251”,
“appliance_name”: “branch3”,
“gsheets_credentials_filepath”: “private/credentials.json”,
“gsheets_sheet_id”: “1GacYZXvmEyGARBAGEB_H5uVGIl8z7qgcjvnVezDuXA”,
“gsheets_worksheet_name”: “TEST1”,
“ipsec_endpoint”: “10.210.195.1”,
“is_automated”: “YES”,
“is_onboarded”: “YES”,
“management_ip”: “172.29.255.251”,
“model”: “VM”,
“rulebase”: “andy”,
“serial”: “FGTTESTABC456”,
“wan1_mode”: “TEST456”
}
}
},
“all”: {
“children”: [
“AUS”,
“GERMANY”,
“LAB”,
“RB1”,
“RB2”,
“UK”,
“andy”,
“ungrouped”
]
},
“andy”: {
“hosts”: [
“FGT60ETK19099ZZZ”,
“FGTTESTABC456”
]
}
}

6

Apologies - I didn’t answer your first question. This was using operator 0.23.0. I’m now using operator 0.25.0. (AWX 21.3.0)

7

Hi there,

An update for you - it works!

I had set the inventory source to overwrite every time, but maybe it wasn’t doing that. Deleting the inventory hosts, and re-syncing the inventory now populates the description column as expected!

Really happy about that.

Thanks to the team who are answering questions on this - I really appreciate you taking the time.

Regards,
Andrew

8

Awesome, glad you got this working! thanks for the update