# Scaling the Ansible Hierarchy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [November 21, 2016, 3:38pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/scaling-the-ansible-hierarchy/23064 "2016-11-21T15:38:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jeffrey\_Wen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/90db22/32.png) [@Jeffrey\_Wen](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Jeffrey_Wen)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 3:38pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/scaling-the-ansible-hierarchy/23064/1 "2016-11-21T15:38:13Z")
Hello, I am currently following the [directory layout](http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_best_practices.html#directory-layout) provided by Ansible. I understand that if I keep all of my roles/\* in a directory, I can easily call each role from the top level directory like so: `site.yml # master playbook webservers.yml # playbook for webserver tier dbservers.yml # playbook for dbserver tier` **However, if I have more than just webservers, dbservers, etc. my top level directory will get filled with yml files like so:** ` site.yml # master playbook webservers.yml # playbook for webserver tier dbservers.yml # playbook for dbserver tier appservers.yml # playbook for appserver tier logservers.yml # playbook for logserver tier otherservers1.yml # playbook for otherservers1 tier otherservers2.yml # playbook for otherservers2 tier otherservers3.yml # playbook for otherservers3 tier otherservers4.yml # playbook for otherservers4 tier roles/ common/ # this hierarchy represents a “role” tasks/ # main.yml # ← tasks file can include smaller files if warranted handlers/ # main.yml # ← handlers file templates/ # ← files for use with the template resource ntp.conf.j2 # \<------- templates end in .j2 files/ # bar.txt # ← files for use with the copy resource foo.sh # ← script files for use with the script resource vars/ # main.yml # ← variables associated with this role defaults/ # main.yml # ← default lower priority variables for this role meta/ # main.yml # ← role dependencies ` **Question** : What is the solution to not overfilling my top-level directory with yml files? (Or is this normal?) ---
**Author:** ![Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kai_Stian_Olstad)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/scaling-the-ansible-hierarchy/23064/2 "2016-11-22T17:37:24Z")
At you top level, create a directory called playbooks (or choose you favorite name). Then you can run "ansible-playbook playbooks/site.yml". Since Ansible look for roles relative too where the playbook is, you need to set the "roles\_path = ./roles" in your ansible.cfg. The ansible.cfg can live in your top level directory. ---
**Author:** ![Jeffrey\_Wen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/90db22/32.png) [@Jeffrey\_Wen](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Jeffrey_Wen)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 6:40pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/scaling-the-ansible-hierarchy/23064/3 "2016-11-22T18:40:24Z")
Thank you, Kai! That works for me! ---
**Author:** ![burns498](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b487fb/32.png) [@burns498](https://forum.ansible.com/u/burns498)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/scaling-the-ansible-hierarchy/23064/4 "2016-11-22T18:53:02Z")
Thanks for the info! I tried this in my own environment, since I actually had a similar question before. Moved playbooks to a playbooks dir. Set role\_path=./roles. This broke my include statements, which I now modified to ‘- include: “{{ roles\_path }}/role\_handlers\_ant/handlers/main.yml”’. This is likely a better practice anyway. However, it seems that my plays can no longer find my group\_vars and other such objects. Basic structure is below: ` ansible.cfg .ansible/inventory playbooks/ pb.yml roles/ # roles… host\_vars/ # host\_vars… group\_vars/ # group\_vars… ` Should host and group vars also be moved? They worked fine before I moved playbooks from top level dir to their own dir. Specifically, the error I get now is below. This is a variable defined in a group\_vars. > fatal: [ptl01a0fap006]: FAILED! =\> {“failed”: true, “msg”: “The conditional check ‘’{{ ansible\_user\_id }}’ != ‘{{ wmadmin }}’’ failed. The error was: error while evaluating conditional (‘{{ ansible\_user\_id }}’ != ‘{{ wmadmin }}’): ‘wmadmin’ is undefined\n\nThe error appears to have been in ‘/manh/roles/role\_utility\_preplay\_validation/tasks/main.yml’: line 2, column 3, but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.\n\nThe offending line appears to be:\n\n—\n- name: Ensure uid is appropriate for {{ inventory\_hostname\_short }}\n ^ here\nWe could be wrong, but this one looks like it might be an issue with\nmissing quotes. Always quote template expression brackets when they\nstart a value. For instance:\n\n with\_items:\n - {{ foo }}\n\nShould be written as:\n\n with\_items:\n - "{{ foo }}"\n”} Thanks ---
**Author:** ![burns498](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b487fb/32.png) [@burns498](https://forum.ansible.com/u/burns498)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 7:25pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/scaling-the-ansible-hierarchy/23064/5 "2016-11-22T19:25:08Z")
Ok so I ended up rolling back to playbooks in the top level directory. I got myself turned around a bit here. The {{roles\_path}} as part of the include actually wasn’t working; which, I should have known since you can’t use ansible.cfg parameters in tasks like that. I think my main problem is that I’m using ‘include’ statements to include roles during plays. In this way, I function them out as reusable functions for different roles. I was warned that this is a nonstandard, in favor of meta dependencies. I think that’s coming back to bite me now. Sample: ` - name: database param\_def select # Initial select statement to see if db changes are required tags: db include: roles/role\_utility\_sqlplus/tasks/main.yml vars: query\_type: “select” table: “param\_def” filename: “dbselect\_paramdef\_mhe.sql” ` ---
**Author:** ![Jeffrey\_Wen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/90db22/32.png) [@Jeffrey\_Wen](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Jeffrey_Wen)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 7:29pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/scaling-the-ansible-hierarchy/23064/6 "2016-11-22T19:29:21Z")
When you run the ansible-playbook, what about prefixing the command with ANSIBLE\_ROLES\_PATH. For example: `ANSIBLE_ROLES_PATH=your_path ansible-playbook site.yml` ---
**Author:** ![Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kai_Stian_Olstad)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/scaling-the-ansible-hierarchy/23064/7 "2016-11-22T20:34:35Z")
Ansible is looking for host\_vars and group\_vars in the inventory file directory or the playbook directory. If they exist in both, playbook directory overrides. ---
**Author:** ![Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kai_Stian_Olstad)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 8:41pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/scaling-the-ansible-hierarchy/23064/8 "2016-11-22T20:41:05Z")
You could use include: ../roles/role\_utility\_sqlplus/tasks/main.yml Or you could set roles\_path to a absolute path instead, but then the problem is that every Ansible users need to have the files in the same path and thats unpractical.