Including mulitple files

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1

Hello!

I’m struggling with importing the functionality of deploy_revision from chef to ansible.

In case of ruby this means the following steps:

  • checkout git repo to /revisions/sha1
  • run bundle install in there
  • create necessary custom configuration files
  • take any necessary custom steps to configure the installation
  • update symlink of /current to point to /revisions/sha1

Now what I’d like to do is to put steps 1,2,5 into a separate task file, and use it like this:

  • include: …/…/common/tasks/ruby-git-deploy.yml
    deploy_dir: /opt/water/revisions
    deploy_revision: master
    deploy_repository: git@github.com/…

tasks_before_symlink:

  • roles/water-meter/setup.yml
  • roles/common/rake_db_migrate.yml

the tasks_before_symlink would point to the tasks files that would carry out steps 3,4, but I seem to be unable to include them:

  • include: ‘{{item}}’
    with_items: {{ tasks_before_symlink }}

complains about deprecated code:

ERROR: [DEPRECATED]: include + with_items is a removed deprecated feature (in /Users/avandra/projects/freelancer/liveoaksys/water-playbook/roles/common/tasks/ruby-git-deploy.yml). Please update your playbooks.

There is no realy pointer on what is the “new way” to do this, can you help me out?

Regards,
Akos Vandra

2

There are various approaches to this, but here’s an example role that does this:

https://github.com/f500/ansible-project_deploy

We’re talking about making a helper module in Ansible 1.8 timeframe that would make a lot of this easier without needing a custom role.

While you cannot use “include” together with a “with_items”, you can pass a list to a role, and then loop inside the role on each task.

  • { role: name: ‘foo’, stuff: a_list }

in tasks file:

  • shell: echo parameter is {{ item }}
    with_items: a_list

Etc

3

Hi Michael,

Is there a github issue for the module proposal you are talking about? I have multiple use cases for includes with_fileglob ( for example https://gist.github.com/anonymous/1691f3ab625175011449 ) and the current proposal feel kind of hackish. It could, of course, be me because I’m not using ansible professionally…

Thanks!
Kim

4

There’s not a github issue.

Generally we don’t want to see feature request tickets (GitHub ticket organization is a giant pain – though we’ll leave them open when someone has a especially good idea), so it’s mostly a matter of getting the work done. We’ve got a note to look at this in 1.8 timeframe.

5

“and the current proposal feel kind of hackish”

A matter of opinion, clearly, which I don’t think is fair to those discussing it unless you can present a better proposal.

In any event, group discussion should happen on ansible-devel, not on GitHub.

6

I have solved my issue by providing a variable to the deploy task,
which will in turn include that.
But it does feel somewhat like writing try-catch-finally behaviour
code in C, having to split all the before, between and after stuff
into separate files (functions).

includes: git-deploy.yml
vars:
  before_migrate_tasks: my-hook.yml

@@@ git-deploy.yml

- prepare_tasks
- include: {{ before_migrate_tasks }}
- migrate_tasks

7

Hi Michael,

I was talking about the looping of each task in a role, not about any new proposal or old functionality, excuse me for any misunderstanding. I also wasn’t aware about ansible-development group, thank you for pointing that out.