Ansible variables

ansible_connection

The connection plugin used for the task on the target host. This can be the name of any Ansible connection plugin.

SSH protocol types are smart, ssh, or paramiko. You can also use local to run tasks on the control node itself.

Default = smart

ansible_host

The IP address or name of the target host to use instead of inventory_hostname.

ansible_password

The password to authenticate to the host.

Do not store this variable in plain text. Always use a vault.

ansible_port

The connection port number.

The default for SSH is 22.

ansible_scp_extra_args

This setting is always appended to the default scp command line.

ansible_sftp_extra_args

This setting is always appended to the default sftp command line.

ansible_shell_executable

This sets the shell that the Ansible controller uses on the target machine and overrides the executable in ansible.cfg which defaults to /bin/sh.

ansible_shell_type

The shell type of the target system.

Do not use this setting unless you have set the ansible_shell_executable to a non-Bourne (sh) compatible shell. By default commands are formatted using sh-style syntax. Setting this to csh or fish causes commands executed on target systems to follow the syntax of those shells instead.

ansible_ssh_common_args

This setting is always appended to the default command line for sftp, scp, and ssh. Useful to configure a ProxyCommand for a certain host or group.

ansible_ssh_executable

This setting overrides the default behavior to use the system ssh. This can override the ssh_executable setting in ansible.cfg.

ansible_ssh_extra_args

This setting is always appended to the default ssh command line.

ansible_ssh_pipelining

Determines if SSH pipelining is used.

This can override the pipelining setting in ansible.cfg. If using SSH key-based authentication, the key must be managed by an SSH agent.

ansible_ssh_private_key_file

Private key file used by SSH.

Useful if using multiple keys and you do not want to use an SSH agent.

ansible_user

The user name to use when connecting to the host.

Do not change this variable unless /bin/sh is not installed on the target machine or cannot be run from sudo.

inventory_hostname

This variable takes the hostname of the machine from the inventory script or the Ansible configuration file. You cannot set the value of this variable. Because the value is taken from the configuration file, the actual runtime hostname value can vary from what is returned by this variable.