In our environment, we have several roles that share common default "site"
variables for things like the lists of domain controllers, NTP servers, the
name of the kerberos realm, etc. Many of these variables are used in more
than one role, but not all the roles are used by all systems. So we just
created a role called "site-defaults" that only has a defaults/main.yml
containing all the site-specific default variables; it doesn't perform any
tasks. Then we just add a role dependency in the other roles for the
site-defaults role. Admins can always override the defaults with host or
group variables if they need to, but at least we make an attempt to get
everyone off on the right foot.
On Wednesday, August 27, 2014 2:11:55 PM UTC-5, Michael DeHaan wrote:
>
> Setting defaults in group_vars/all is usually a very good place to set
> global defaults.
>
> Note that role defaults are a lower priority than inventory though.
>
> You could also consider symlinks.
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Daniele Varrazzo <daniele....@gmail.com
> <javascript:>> wrote:
>
>> Hello, first of all thank you very much for Ansible.
>>
>> I'm setting up the deployment of a complex system and splitting it across
>> roles. I haven't found yet a satisfactory way of sharing variables across
>> the roles. A simple example: set the database port in the db role and use
>> it in the web role. I'm expecting to be able do do something along this
>> line:
>>
>> roles/
>> db/
>> defaults/main.yml
>> db_port: 5432
>> web/
>> templates/
>> web.conf.j2
>> [database]
>> port: {{ db_port }}
>>
>> The above wants to represent the fact that the default port for the
>> database is 5432; this may be overridden by a group_vars file for specific
>> installation having the db on a non-standard port. Currently it doesn't
>> work because the db_port variable is not known by the web role. How to work
>> around that?
>>
>> 1. put all the shared variables in group_vars/all. It works but it breaks
>> the encapsulation of the roles: without a certain unknown set of variables
>> defined at least in "all" the db cannot be configured.
>> 2. add the db role as a dependency of web: this makes it execute the
>> entire db tasks list, which is not what hoped.
>> 3. add "include_vars: ../../db/defaults/main.yml" to the web's tasks.
>> This gives a higher preference to the default variable and overriding it in
>> group_vars (or in the inventory) doesn't work anymore.
>>
>> As it is now I'm stuck with 1, which is also what I've generally found in
>> the examples. Is there anything better? It seems a relatively
>> straightforward use case to me:
>>
>> 1. a provider role defines a variable and provides a default for it;
>> 2. a consumer role uses the variable provided;
>> 3. a group or inventory variable can override the default.
>>
>> Thank you very much,
>>
>> -- Daniele
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "Ansible Project" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>> email to ansible-proje...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>.
>> To post to this group, send email to ansible...@googlegroups.com
>> <javascript:>.
>> To view this discussion on the web visit
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ansible-project/7762fbc1-5491-4f77-8db3-0581af9bbf1e%40googlegroups.com
>>
>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ansible-project/7762fbc1-5491-4f77-8db3-0581af9bbf1e%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
>> .
>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>>
>
>
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Ansible Project" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to ansible-project+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to ansible-project@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ansible-project/d6f74176-32e7-46e5-984a-644e6d3ae9f4%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
