Same host in inventory twice with two different ports, not working

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1

Hello,

I have an inventory file with the same host twice, once using ssh on port 22, once using ssh on port 12345. This is inventory file bad.hosts2:

[host1]

foo.example.com:22 ansible_connection=ssh ansible_ssh_user=root

[host2]

foo.example.com:12345 ansible_connection=ssh ansible_ssh_user=root

The intent is to use one host (host1) to copy a new sshd config file and to setup sshd to run on a different port. From then on, the second host (host2) would be used.

However, the behavior is strange: no matter what I do, port 22 is used.

Johns-MacBook-Air:ansible.bug j$ ansible -i bad.hosts2 -m ping host1

foo.example.com| success >> {

“changed”: false,

“ping”: “pong”

}

Johns-MacBook-Air:ansible.bug j$ ansible -i bad.hosts2 -m ping host2

foo.example.com | success >> {

“changed”: false,

“ping”: “pong”

}

Note sshd is only running on port 22, and if I switch the order of the two hosts in the inventory file, both host1 and host2 will fail the ping.

What is happening here?

Thanks

John

2

Instead of using groups, you should likely use aliases such as:

host1 ansible_host=foo.example.com ansible_port=22
host2 ansible_host=foo.example.com ansible_port=12345

Inventory names in Ansible are unique, so aliasing like that allows you to duplicate a host, while keep configurations for each different.

3

I think what better solution for storing SSH settings (hostname, port, username, proxycommand, identityfile …) is ~/.ssh/config.

4

Try using “ansible_ssh_port” rather than hostname:port.