# inventory name as variable **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [August 14, 2013, 8:57am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/inventory-name-as-variable/13299 "2013-08-14T08:57:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Marc\_Patermann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@Marc\_Patermann](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Marc_Patermann)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 8:57am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/inventory-name-as-variable/13299/1 "2013-08-14T08:57:04Z")
Hi, I created two inventories: "test" and "production". test includes groups like "webserver-test", as production are "webserver-prod". A configuration file differs from test to production. I created files like files/test-conf.file and files/prod-conf.file and want to use the test-\* files for inventory test and prod-\* for production. Can I check for the inventory name a host is in or is there a better way to achieve what I want? Marc ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 11:14am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/inventory-name-as-variable/13299/2 "2013-08-14T11:14:52Z")
The best thing to do is to use groups and put your hosts in different groups. when: inventory\_hostname in groups.webservers Or even better, target with the play: hosts: production:&webservers This says target webservers and machines that are in production. This is also equivalent to hosts: webservers with --limit production on the CLI In 1.3, there is also a variable “inventory\_file” that will tell you the path to the file however you don’t really want to do that unless you need to know the path, paths shouldn’t be significant. ---
**Author:** ![Marc\_Patermann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@Marc\_Patermann](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Marc_Patermann)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 1:40pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/inventory-name-as-variable/13299/3 "2013-08-14T13:40:58Z")
Michael, Michael DeHaan schrieb (14.08.2013 13:14 Uhr): > The best thing to do is to use groups and put your hosts in different groups. I like this one: > when: inventory\_hostname in groups.webservers This playbook fails with "TASK: [copy linux-init.ldif test] ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/inventory-name-as-variable/13299/4 "2013-08-14T17:52:18Z")
Sounds like you don’t have a group named webservers and should use another name. ---
**Author:** ![Marc\_Patermann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@Marc\_Patermann](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Marc_Patermann)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:12am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/inventory-name-as-variable/13299/5 "2013-08-15T06:12:50Z")
Michael, Michael DeHaan schrieb (14.08.2013 19:52 Uhr): > Sounds like you don't have a group named webservers and should use another name. my group is "lsm-test" which works in hosts: >     "--- >     - hosts: >       - lsm-test >       - lsm-prod >       gather\_facts: no > >       tasks: >       - name: stop slapd >         service: name=ldap state=stopped >         register: slapd\_is\_stopped > >       - name: copy linux-init.ldif test >         copy: >               src=files/test-linux-init.ldif >               dest=/etc/openldap/linux-init.\_\_ldif >         when: inventory\_hostname in groups.lsm-test >     ..." Marc ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 12:30pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/inventory-name-as-variable/13299/6 "2013-08-15T12:30:47Z")
And you referenced “webservers” above, which is the source of the error then 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Marc\_Patermann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@Marc\_Patermann](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Marc_Patermann)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 12:53pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/inventory-name-as-variable/13299/7 "2013-08-15T12:53:44Z")
Michael DeHaan schrieb (15.08.2013 14:30 Uhr): > And you referenced "webservers" above, which is the source of the error then 🙂 this was only a cite from your mail, an example. That may caused the misunderstanding. My playbook is below the error message in the same mail. There is no "webservers" in there. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 1:17pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/inventory-name-as-variable/13299/8 "2013-08-15T13:17:05Z")
Ok, please make sure there is a bug filed in github and we’ll take a look!