Wildcards in ansible_facts

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Hello,

I’m attempting to loop over numerous network interfaces and send them to our NetBox instance. Unfortunately, due to the disparate types of servers and network interfaces that are provided, I would like to be able to use wildcards to loop over all interfaces of certain types. So far I have attempted the following:

    - name: Write interfaces and addresses
      include_tasks:
        file: interfaces.yml
      loop:
        - "{{ ansible_facts['ansible_eth*'] }}"
        - "{{ ansible_facts['ansible_'+eno*] }}"
        - "{{ ansible_facts['ansible_'+enp24s0f*] }}"

Unsurprisingly, ansible isn’t happy when I tried to do so:

TASK [Write interfaces and addresses] ********************************************************************************************
fatal: [<hostname>]: FAILED! => {"msg": "'dict object' has no attribute 'ansible_eth*'. 'dict object' has no attribute 'ansible_eth*'"}

I’m looking for guidance on how to best iterate over the interfaces. Any advice is greatly appreciated. If it’s relevant, ansible version info is below:

ansible [core 2.16.6]
  config file = /home/user/project-hpc-netbox-migration/ansible.cfg
  configured module search path = ['/home/user/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /opt/rci/miniconda3/envs/ansible/lib/python3.12/site-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /home/user/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /opt/rci/miniconda3/envs/ansible/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.12.3 | packaged by Anaconda, Inc. | (main, May  6 2024, 19:46:43) [GCC 11.2.0] (/opt/rci/miniconda3/envs/ansible/bin/python)
  jinja version = 3.1.4
  libyaml = True
2

Hii

| sam_karateman
September 4 |

  • | - |

Hello,

I’m attempting to loop over numerous network interfaces and send them to our NetBox instance. Unfortunately, due to the disparate types of servers and network interfaces that are provided, I would like to be able to use wildcards to loop over all interfaces of certain types. So far I have attempted the following:

    - name: Write interfaces and addresses
      include_tasks:
        file: interfaces.yml
      loop:
        - "{{ ansible_facts['ansible_eth*'] }}"
        - "{{ ansible_facts['ansible_'+eno*] }}"
        - "{{ ansible_facts['ansible_'+enp24s0f*] }}"

Unsurprisingly, ansible isn’t happy when I tried to do so:

TASK [Write interfaces and addresses] ********************************************************************************************
fatal: [<hostname>]: FAILED! => {"msg": "'dict object' has no attribute 'ansible_eth*'. 'dict object' has no attribute 'ansible_eth*'"}

I’m looking for guidance on how to best iterate over the interfaces. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Try looping over this:

loop: “{{ ansible_facts.interfaces | select(‘search’, ‘(eth|eno|enp24s0f)\d+’) }}”

That is a regex there, you may have to tweak it a bit further for your situation.

Dick

3 Likes
3

As a best practice you first filter facts using set_fact module using filters and iterate over the that variable or list of facts. loop matching the exact attribute name from facts.

ansible.builtin.set_fact:
my_loop_facts: “{{ ansible_facts[‘interfaces’] | select(‘search’, ‘^eth|^eno|^enp24s0f’) | list }}”

and then iterate over my_loop_facts variable.
loop:
my_loop_facts

-Mayur

4

I was able to get it working for the lookup based on the replies, but I’m having trouble referencing the variable from within ansible_facts. I would like to do something like this:

  when:
    - ansible_facts[\"{{ item }}\"][active] is true

but I’m not sure of what the correct syntax would be for referencing a variable from within the ansible_facts variable. Would anybody have a recommendation?

5

when: expressions are already in a Jinja context, so you never need (or want) mustaches in them.

With zero testing, assuming you’re on the right track, the expression you show above would be spelled like this:

when:
  - ansible_facts[item]['active'] | default(false) | bool

And if that doesn’t work, we can make up something else. :)

6

I didn’t want to leave this hanging, but this is what ended up working for me:

    - name: Set interface names
      ansible.builtin.set_fact:
        interface_list: "{{ ansible_facts.interfaces | select('search', '\\A(eth|eno|enp)') | list }}"

And in another playbook for the writing of the interfaces:

  - name: Write interfaces
    local_action:
      module: netbox.netbox.netbox_device_interface
      netbox_url: "{{ lookup('env', 'NETBOX_API') }}"
      netbox_token: "{{ lookup('env', 'NETBOX_TOKEN') }}"
      data:
        name: "{{ ansible_facts[item]['device'] }}"
        label: "{{ ansible_facts[item]['device'] }}"
        device: "{{ ansible_facts['hostname'] }}"
        type: "{{ 'SFP+ (10GE)' if ansible_facts[item]['speed'] == 10000 else '1000BASE-T (1GE)' }}"
        enabled: "{{ true if ansible_facts[item]['active'] is true else false }}"
        mac_address: "{{ ansible_facts[item]['perm_macaddress'] if ansible_facts[item]['perm_macaddress'] is defined else ansible_facts[item]['macaddress'] }}"
        lag: "{{ ansible_facts['bond0'] if item in ansible_facts['bond0']['slaves'] else omit}}"

Hopefully this will be useful for anybody else who comes along with a similar issue.

7

Some of those expressions could be spelled in a more canonical way:

        type: "{{ ansible_facts[item]['speed'] == 10000 | ansible.builtin.ternary('SFP+ (10GE)', '1000BASE-T (1GE)') }}"
        enabled: "{{ ansible_facts[item]['active'] }}"
        mac_address: "{{ ansible_facts[item]['perm_macaddress'] | default(ansible_facts[item]['macaddress']) }}"
        lag: "{{ item in ansible_facts['bond0']['slaves'] | ansible.builtin.ternary(ansible_facts['bond0'], omit}}"
1 Like
8

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