Ansible - Getting Started with Magic Variables

In Ansible, there are three types of Special Variables.

A magic variable are variables that are built into Ansible. Following are the magic variables.

  • ansible_check_mode
  • ansible_config_file
  • ansible_dependent_role_names
  • ansible_diff_mode
  • ansible_forks
  • ansible_inventory_sources
  • ansible_limit
  • ansible_loop
  • ansible_loop_var
  • ansible_index_var
  • ansible_parent_role_names
  • ansible_parent_role_paths
  • ansible_play_batch
  • ansible_play_hosts
  • ansible_play_hosts_all
  • ansible_play_name
  • ansible_play_role_names
  • ansible_playbook_python
  • ansible_role_names
  • ansible_collection_name
  • ansible_run_tags
  • ansible_search_path
  • ansible_skip_tags
  • ansible_verbosity
  • ansible_version
  • group_names
  • groups
  • hostvars
  • inventory_hostname
  • inventory_hostname_short
  • inventory_dir
  • inventory_file
  • omit
  • play_hosts
  • playbook_dir
  • role_name
  • role_names
  • role_path

For example, let's say you have a playbook named version.yml and version.yml contains the following.

---
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
  - debug:
      var: ansible_version
...

 

You can run the version.yml playbook using the ansible-playbook command.

ansible-playbook version.yml

 

Which should return something like this.

TASK [debug]
ok: [localhost] => {
    "ansible_version": {
        "full": "2.9.27", 
        "major": 2, 
        "minor": 9, 
        "revision": 27, 
        "string": "2.9.27"
    }
}

 

Add a Comment




We will never share your name or email with anyone. Enter your email if you would like to be notified when we respond to your comment.





Please enter b8ce7 in the box below so that we can be sure you are a human.




Comments

January 31st, 2022 by vergissmiNET
Sorry but this article is a complete mess. You start talking about magic variables and give a (completely different) fact as an example. And what has 'gather_facts' to do with magic vars? [ansible@ansible-control http]$ cat magiclocal.yml --- - name: test hosts: localhost gather_facts: False tasks: - debug: var: ansible_version [ansible@ansible-control http]$ ap magiclocal.yml PLAY [test] ********************************************************************************************* TASK [debug] ******************************************************************************************** ok: [localhost] => { "ansible_version": { "full": "2.9.27", "major": 2, "minor": 9, "revision": 27, "string": "2.9.27" } } PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************************************** localhost : ok=1 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0

January 31st, 2022 by Jeremy (moderator)
Yeah, this article was confusing. I was way overdue to clean up this article. I got this article cleaned up so that it makes sense now.

Web design by yours truely - me, myself, and I   |   jeremy.canfield@freekb.net   |