Use a dynamic inventory

Prepare the environment

The Alibaba Cloud dynamic inventory is being integrated into the official Ansible repository. To use it, you must first install the ansible_alicloud_module_utils dependency. This component enables the inventory to make OpenAPI calls.

The installation process automatically installs Ansible and its dependencies, such as footmark and the Alibaba Cloud Python software development kit (SDK).

1. Run the following command to install the ansible_alicloud_module_utils dependency.

   sudo pip install ansible_alicloud_module_utils

2. After the installation is successful, run the following command to check the footmark version.

   pip show footmark

3. If the footmark version is earlier than 1.9.0, run the following command to upgrade it.

   sudo pip install footmark --upgrade

Specify explicitly

To explicitly specify the inventory, use the -i parameter for the dynamic inventory file when you run an Ansible command.

Complete the following steps to specify and configure the Alibaba Cloud inventory:

1. Run the following commands to download the latest version of the Alibaba Cloud dynamic inventory file and grant it executable permissions.

   wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alibaba/ansible-provider/master/contrib/inventory/alicloud.py
   chmod +x alicloud.py

2. Download the alicloud.ini configuration file for the Alibaba Cloud dynamic inventory. Place it in the same folder as the alicloud.py file.

   wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alibaba/ansible-provider/master/contrib/inventory/alicloud.ini

3. Configure your AccessKey pair.

   • Configure the AccessKey pair in the alicloud.ini file.

     alicloud_access_key = Abcd1234 
     alicloud_secret_key = Abcd2345

   • Alternatively, configure the AccessKey pair using environment variables.

     export ALICLOUD_ACCESS_KEY=Abcd1234
     export ALICLOUD_SECRET_KEY=Abcd2345

4. Execute the verification for the inventory file.

   ./alicloud.py --list

   After the configuration is authenticated, inventory information for all regions is returned. If you want to retrieve information for only specific regions, edit the alicloud.ini file and specify the destination regions. You can also use instance_filters in the alicloud.ini file to filter host information.

Specify by default

Instead of explicitly specifying the Alibaba Cloud inventory file, you can configure the dynamic inventory as the default inventory. After you install Ansible, the default Ansible inventory is /etc/ansible/hosts.

Complete the following steps to configure the Alibaba Cloud dynamic inventory as the default inventory:

1. Download the latest version of the Alibaba Cloud dynamic inventory file, grant it executable permissions, and then use it to replace the default inventory.

   wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alibaba/ansible-provider/master/contrib/inventory/alicloud.py
   chmod +x alicloud.py
   sudo cp alicloud.py /etc/ansible/hosts
                       

2. Download the configuration file for the Alibaba Cloud dynamic inventory and move it to the /etc/ansible folder, where the default inventory is located.

   wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alibaba/ansible-provider/master/contrib/inventory/alicloud.ini
   sudo cp alicloud.ini /etc/ansible
                       

3. Run the following command to verify.

   ansible alicloud -m ping

Alibaba Cloud inventory groups

The Alibaba Cloud dynamic inventory provides a mapping from multiple groups to instances:

• Global

  All instances belong to the alicloud group. For example:

  "alicloud": {
      "children": [
        "i_bp1i1aitghkkq*******", 
        "i_bp171m264ryt9*******"
      ]
  },

• Instance ID

  The ID of an ECS instance. For example:

  "i-bp171m264ryt9******": [
      "i_bp171m264ryt9******"
  ], 
  "i-bp1i1aitghkkq******": [
      "i_bp1i1aitghkkq*****"
  ],

• Region

  A group that consists of all instances that belong to an Alibaba Cloud region. For example:

  "cn-hangzhou": [
    "i_bp1i1aitghkkq*******", 
    "i_bp171m264ryt9*******"
  ],

• Zone

  A group that consists of all instances that belong to the same zone. For example:

  "cn-hangzhou-g": [
    "i_bp1i1aitghkkq*******", 
    "i_bp171m264ryt9c******"
  ],

• Security group

  An instance can belong to one or more security groups. The prefix for each group is security_group_. For example:

  "security_group_sg_bp1cp0behw74aa******": [
    "i_bp1i1aitghkkqp******"
  ], 
  "security_group_sg_bp1dtemf7bv5******": [
    "i_bp171m264ryt9******"
  ],

• Tag

  Each instance has multiple key-value pairs called tags. Each key-value pair forms a group. The group name is created from the tag by converting special characters to underscores, using the format tag_KEY_VALUE. For example:

  "tag_acsversion_1_0": [
    "i_t4nd1ehd9umu5******", 
    "i_t4n6v8wv6jue5******"
  ], 
  "tag_env_dev": [
    "i_bp171m264ryt9******"
  ],

Other properties are also used to group hosts, such as VPC ID, VSwitch ID, and image ID.

Scenarios

After you confirm that the Alibaba Cloud inventory is running, you can use alicloud.py as an inventory in specific Ansible scenarios.

./alicloud.py --refresh-cache

The following example shows a scenario for the Alibaba Cloud inventory.

ansible -i alicloud.py alicloud -m ping
47.93.xx.xx | SUCCESS => {
    "changed": false, 
    "ping": "pong"
}
47.93.xx.xx | SUCCESS => {
    "changed": false, 
    "ping": "pong"
}

47.93.xx.xx| UNREACHABLE! => {
    "changed": false, 
    "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: Permission denied (publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic,password).\r\n", 
    "unreachable": true
}
47.93.xx.xx | UNREACHABLE! => {
    "changed": false, 
    "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: Permission denied (publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic,password).\r\n", 
    "unreachable": true
}

ansible -i alicloud.py alicloud -m ping -u root -k
SSH password: 

47.93.xx.xx | SUCCESS => {
    "changed": false, 
    "ping": "pong"
}
47.93.xx.xx | SUCCESS => {
    "changed": false, 
    "ping": "pong"