# various questions about using ansible - inventory, sharing handlers, lists and maps **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [February 24, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/various-questions-about-using-ansible-inventory-sharing-handlers-lists-and-maps/14643 "2014-02-24T19:45:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mark\_Butler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Mark\_Butler](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Mark_Butler)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/various-questions-about-using-ansible-inventory-sharing-handlers-lists-and-maps/14643/1 "2014-02-24T19:45:19Z")
Hello team, I am getting started with ansible but I have a number of questions. Apologies in advance for the rather noob questions: 1. In my inventory, is there anyway I can specify a single domain for all the hosts e.g. [myhosts] hostA hostB rather than [myhosts] [hostA.example.com](http://hostA.example.com) [hostB.example.com](http://hostB.example.com) Given the requirement that I might be run tests from outside the domain? 1. Many of my roles need to call supervisor when they have finished so they all use the same handler: ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan1)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/various-questions-about-using-ansible-inventory-sharing-handlers-lists-and-maps/14643/2 "2014-02-24T19:55:21Z")
> Hello team, > > I am getting started with ansible but I have a number of questions. > Apologies in advance for the rather noob questions: > > 1. In my inventory, is there anyway I can specify a single domain for all > the hosts e.g. > > [myhosts] > hostA > hostB > > rather than > > [myhosts] > hostA.example.com > hostB.example.com > > Given the requirement that I might be run tests from outside the domain? There is not a way to set the domain name suffix on a group all together. OS mechanisms on short filenames (i.e. resolv.conf) will apply > 2. Many of my roles need to call supervisor when they have finished so > they all use the same handler: > > --- > - name: restart supervisor >   service: name=supervisor state=restarted > > However at the moment I have the same duplicated handler file for each > role - how can I avoid this and have a single handler file? Yes, you can define the handler in a common role and just use it once. It's ok if the role doesn't have a tasks file too. > 3. Is it possible to create strings from list? > > I need to create a classpath variable - this is how I do it currently: > > classpath: "{{ dest }}jarA.jar:{{ dest }}jarB.jar:{{ dest }}jarC.jar:{{ > dest }}jarD.jar" Yes! See the "set\_fact" module in the module docs, or just define a variable like so anywhere else in Ansible. Variables are lazy-evaluated at the time of use. > In Python I could use a loop to do this. Is there any way to do this in > Ansible? > > 4. Do map style structures exist? > > Similarly, when I am getting these jars I use a list like this - ideally > it would be better to use a map, then generate the list from the map to > avoid configuration duplication. Is there any way to achieve this? > > - name: my service | Get jars >   action: get\_url url={{ build\_url }}lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/{{ item > }} dest={{ dest }} mode=0440 >   with\_items: >     - pathA/jarA >     - pathB/jarB >     - pathC/jarC >     - pathD/jarD So what you have above works. What would be in your map/dictionary? You can definitely iterate across a list of dictionaries and hopefully I can help explain further -- just need a bit more context. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Butler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Mark\_Butler](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Mark_Butler)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 8:09pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/various-questions-about-using-ansible-inventory-sharing-handlers-lists-and-maps/14643/3 "2014-02-24T20:09:56Z")
Hi Michael, Sorry about the SO mix-up. The reason I don’t want to define it at the inventory or group level is it isn’t associated with them - it’s associated with the role - because the service wherever it runs will use the same jars - and because the jars often have version numbers in that will change slowly with release - so it doesn’t make sense to pass them in every time but also it makes sense to have them in a config so they can be changed without breaking the template. Actually, it turns out it’s easy and I was being stupid because the “best practice” document does say that I can create vars at the role level (as Leucos pointed out, thanks!). My next question was going to be if roles can share vars but I am guessing by your reply above they can via the common task just like handlers. For the list and map, this is how I would do it Python - I’m just keen to avoid duplicate config values. build\_server\_path = ‘[http://builderserver/path](http://builderserver/path)’ dest\_path = ‘/dest/path/’ jars = {‘pathA’:‘jarA’, ‘pathB’: ‘jarB’, ‘pathC’: ‘jarC’} # jars have path on build server because they come from different modules urls = [build\_server\_path + k + ‘/’ + jars[k] for k in jars] # but for service execution put them one directory and generate classpath to simplify things dest\_jars = [‘/dest/path/’ + jars[k] for k in jars] classpath = ‘:’.join(dest\_jars) download(urls, dest\_path) set\_classpath(classpath) Thanks, Mark ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Butler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Mark\_Butler](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Mark_Butler)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 11:44pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/various-questions-about-using-ansible-inventory-sharing-handlers-lists-and-maps/14643/4 "2014-02-24T23:44:37Z")
Hi Michael, Team, One more question I am afraid - is there any way I can share templates between roles? I tried putting my template in common/templates but it didn’t work? Thanks! Mark ---
**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:** [February 25, 2014, 12:07am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/various-questions-about-using-ansible-inventory-sharing-handlers-lists-and-maps/14643/5 "2014-02-25T00:07:39Z")
You can …/…/common/templates/foo.j2 in the src= – Michael ---
**Author:** ![Alexander\_Litnitskiy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@Alexander\_Litnitskiy](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Alexander_Litnitskiy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 11:53am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/various-questions-about-using-ansible-inventory-sharing-handlers-lists-and-maps/14643/6 "2015-07-15T11:53:51Z")
Regarding first question I do it myself like: [myhosts] hostA hostB group\_vars/all ansible\_ssh\_host: “{{inventory\_hostname}}.{{domain}}” group\_vars/myhosts: domain: [example.com](http://example.com) In my case each group/host must define “domain” variable.