ValueError regarding to shlex.py with dynamic inventory

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1

Hello,
I am currently writing an dynamic inventory to query out central database (CMDB.
Regarding to http://docs.ansible.com/developing_inventory.html, I am implementing the _meta field for host variables. As far as I understood, “_meta” resolves in the function “–host” to be deprecated. So i just wrote a ‘stupid’ script without any parameters.
My output looks like this:

{
“ungrouped”: {
“hosts”: [
“ServerA”,
“ServerB”
]

},
“_meta”: {
“hostvars”: {
“ServerA”: {
“ansible_ssh_host”: “192.168.0.1”
},
“ServerB”: {
“ansible_ssh_host”: “192.168.0.2”
}
}
}
}

Everything should be fine. But running ansible produces the following error (Ignore the first 2 lines. Those are warnings regarding to the SLES version of libraries):

user@host ~/git/ansible $ ansible-playbook site.yml -i /tmp/dyn_cmdb_inv.py
/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/Crypto/Util/number.py:57: PowmInsecureWarning: Not using mpz_powm_sec. You should rebuild using libgmp >= 5 to avoid timing attack vulnerability.
_warn(“Not using mpz_powm_sec. You should rebuild using libgmp >= 5 to avoid timing attack vulnerability.”, PowmInsecureWarning)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/bin/ansible-playbook”, line 269, in
sys.exit(main(sys.argv[1:]))
File “/usr/bin/ansible-playbook”, line 86, in main
inventory = ansible.inventory.Inventory(options.inventory)
File “/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/ansible/inventory/init.py”, line 105, in init
self.parser = InventoryParser(filename=host_list)
File “/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/ansible/inventory/ini.py”, line 41, in init
self._parse()
File “/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/ansible/inventory/ini.py”, line 45, in _parse
self._parse_base_groups()
File “/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/ansible/inventory/ini.py”, line 83, in _parse_base_groups
tokens = shlex.split(line)
File “/usr/lib64/python2.6/shlex.py”, line 279, in split
return list(lex)
File “/usr/lib64/python2.6/shlex.py”, line 269, in next
token = self.get_token()
File “/usr/lib64/python2.6/shlex.py”, line 96, in get_token
raw = self.read_token()
File “/usr/lib64/python2.6/shlex.py”, line 172, in read_token
raise ValueError, “No closing quotation”
ValueError: No closing quotation

Do you have any hint, why this error is produced? All quotations and formats are correct. The output is generated in python with “print (json.dumps(inventory, cls=DateEncoder, indent=4))”, while “inventory” is a dictionary.

Thank you.
Alex

2

From that traceback, it appears as though your inventory script is being parsed by the ini parser.

That is an indication that your inventory script has not been set as executable. (chmod +x /path/to/inventory/script)

Ansible determines whether it is an ini file or script by detecting if the file is executable.

3

Hello Matt,
Just such a simple solution didn’t come into my mind. It works now. Thank you!

Best regards,
Alex