Chapter 18. Inventories

Procedure

1. From the navigation panel, select Resources Inventories.
2. Select Add Smart Inventory from Add list.

3. In the Create new smart inventory page, click the icon in the Smart host filter field. This opens a window to filter hosts for this inventory.

   

4. In the search menu, change the search criteria from Name to Advanced and select ansible_facts from the Key field.

   

   If you wanted to add the following ansible fact:

   /api/v2/hosts/?host_filter=ansible_facts__ansible_processor[]="GenuineIntel"

   In the search field, enter ansible_processor[]="GenuineIntel" (no extra spaces or __ before the value) and click Enter.

   

   The search criteria for the specified ansible fact is displayed.

   To filter by the regex variable, see the ansible.builtin.regex_search filter documentation, and the KCS article, How to filter hosts not having a particular variable name using regex when creating Smart Inventory.

1. Click Select to add it to the Smart host filter field.
2. Click Save.
3. The Details tab of the new Smart Inventory opens and displays the specified ansible facts in the Smart host filter field.

4. From the Details view, you can edit the Smart host filter field by clicking Edit and delete existing filters, clear all existing filters, or add new ones.

   

1. Construct 2 groups, limit to intersection:

   source_vars:

   plugin: constructed
   strict: true
   groups:
     is_shutdown: state | default("running") == "shutdown"
     product_dev: account_alias == "product_dev"

   limit: is_shutdown:&product_dev

   This constructed inventory input creates a group for both categories and uses the limit (host pattern) to only return hosts that are in the intersection of those two groups, which is documented in Patterns:targeting hosts and groups.

   When a variable is or is not defined (depending on the host), you can give a default. For example, use | default("running") if you know what value it should have when it is not defined. This helps with debugging, as described in Debugging tips.

2. Construct 1 group, limit to group:

   source_vars:

   plugin: constructed
   strict: true
   groups:
     shutdown_in_product_dev: state | default("running") == "shutdown" and account_alias == "product_dev"

   limit: shutdown_in_product_dev

   This input creates one group that only includes hosts that match both criteria. The limit is then just the group name by itself, returning host2. The same as the earlier approach.

Procedure

1. From the navigation panel, select Resources Inventories.
2. Select a template, and in the Access tab, click Add.
3. Select a user or team to add and click Next.
4. Select the check box next to a name to add one or more users or teams from the list as members.

5. Click Next.

   

   In this example, two users have been selected to be added.

6. Select the roles you want the selected users or teams to have. Scroll down for a complete list of roles. Different resources have different options available.

   

7. Click Save to apply the roles to the selected users or teams and to add them as members.

Procedure

1. Select the Inventory name you want to add groups to.
2. In the Inventory Details page, select the Groups tab.
3. Click Add to open the Create Group window.

4. Enter the appropriate details:

   • Name: Required
   • Optional: Description: Enter a description as appropriate.
   • Variables: Enter definitions and values to be applied to all hosts in this group. Enter variables using either JSON or YAML syntax. Use the radio button to toggle between the two.
5. Click Save.
6. When you have added a group to a template, the Group details page is displayed.

Procedure

1. Select the Inventory name you want to add groups to.
2. In the Inventory Details page, select the Hosts tab.
3. Click Add.
4. Select whether to add a host that already exists in your configuration or create a new host.
5. If creating a new host, set the toggle to On to include this host while running jobs.

6. Enter the appropriate details:

   • Host Name (required):
   • Optional: Description: Enter a description as appropriate.

   • Variables: Enter definitions and values to be applied to all hosts in this group, as in the following example:

     {
       ansible_user : <username to ssh into>
       ansible_ssh_pass : <password for the username>
       ansible_become_pass: <password for becoming the root>
     }

     Enter variables using either JSON or YAML syntax. Use the radio button to toggle between the two.

7. Click Save.

8. The Create Host window closes and the newly created host is displayed in the list of hosts associated with the group that it was created for.

   

   If you choose to add an existing host, available hosts appear in a separate selection window.

   When a host is selected, it is displayed in the list of hosts associated with the group.

9. You can disassociate a host from this screen by selecting the host and clicking the icon.

   Note

   You can also run ad hoc commands from this screen. For more information, see [Running ad hoc commands].

10. To configure additional groups for the host, click the name of the host from the list of hosts.

    

    This opens the Details tab of the selected host.

11. Select the Groups tab to configure groups for the host.

12. Click Add to associate the host with an existing group. Available groups appear in a separate selection window.

    

13. Select the groups to associate with the host and click Save.

    When a group is associated, it is displayed in the list of groups associated with the host.

14. If a host was used to run a job, you can view details about those jobs in the Completed Jobs tab of the host.

15. Click Expanded to view details about each job.

    

Procedure

1. Select the Inventory name you want to add a source to.
2. In the Inventory Details page, select the Sources tab.

3. Click Add. This opens the Create Source window.

   

4. Enter the appropriate details:

   • Name (required):
   • Optional: Description: Enter a description as appropriate.
   • Optional: Execution Environment: Click the icon or enter the name of the execution environment with which you want to run your inventory imports. For more information on building an execution environment, see Execution environments.
   • Source: Choose a source for your inventory. For more information on sources, and supplying the appropriate information, see Inventory sources.
5. When the information for your chosen Inventory sources is complete, you can optionally specify other common parameters, such as verbosity, host filters, and variables.
6. Use the Verbosity menu to select the level of output on any inventory source’s update jobs.
7. Use the Host Filter field to specify only matching host names to be imported into automation controller.
8. In the Enabled Variable field, specify that automation controller retrieves the enabled state from the dictionary of host variables. You can specify the enabled variable using dot notation as 'foo.bar', in which case the lookup searches nested dictionaries, equivalent to: from_dict.get('foo', {}).get('bar', default).

9. If you specified a dictionary of host variables in the Enabled Variable field, you can provide a value to enable on import. For example, for enabled_var='status.power_state' and 'enabled_value='powered_on' in the following host variables, the host is marked enabled:

   {
   "status": {
   "power_state": "powered_on",
   "created": "2020-08-04T18:13:04+00:00",
   "healthy": true
   },
   "name": "foobar",
   "ip_address": "192.168.2.1"
   }

   If power_state is any value other than powered_on, then the host is disabled when imported into automation controller. If the key is not found, then the host is enabled.

10. All cloud inventory sources have the following update options:

    • Overwrite: If checked, any hosts and groups that were previously present on the external source but are now removed, are removed from the automation controller inventory. Hosts and groups that were not managed by the inventory source are promoted to the next manually created group, or, if there is no manually created group to promote them into, they are left in the "all" default group for the inventory.

      When not checked, local child hosts and groups not found on the external source remain untouched by the inventory update process.

    • Overwrite Variables: If checked, all variables for child groups and hosts are removed and replaced by those found on the external source.

      When not checked, a merge is performed, combining local variables with those found on the external source.

    • Update on Launch: Each time a job runs using this inventory, refresh the inventory from the selected source before executing job tasks.

      To avoid job overflows if jobs are spawned faster than the inventory can synchronize, selecting this enables you to configure a Cache Timeout to previous cache inventory synchronizations for a certain number of seconds.

      The Update on Launch setting refers to a dependency system for projects and inventory, and does not specifically exclude two jobs from running at the same time.

      If a cache timeout is specified, then the dependencies for the second job are created, and it uses the project and inventory update that the first job spawned.

      Both jobs then wait for that project or inventory update to finish before proceeding. If they are different job templates, they can then both start and run at the same time, if the system has the capacity to do so. If you intend to use automation controller’s provisioning callback feature with a dynamic inventory source, Update on Launch must be set for the inventory group.

      If you synchronize an inventory source that uses a project that has Update On Launch set, then the project might automatically update (according to cache timeout rules) before the inventory update starts.

      You can create a job template that uses an inventory that sources from the same project that the template uses. In such a case, the project updates and then the inventory updates (if updates are not already in progress, or if the cache timeout has not already expired).

11. Review your entries and selections. This enables you to configure additional details, such as schedules and notifications.

12. To configure schedules associated with this inventory source, click the Schedules tab:

    • If schedules are already set up, then review, edit, enable or disable your schedule preferences.
    • If schedules have not been set up, for more information about setting up schedules, see Schedules.

1. In the Inventory Details page, select the Notifications tab.

   Note

   The Notifications tab is only present when you have saved the newly-created source.

   

2. If notifications are already set up, use the toggles to enable or disable the notifications to use with your particular source. For more information, see Enable and Disable Notifications.
3. If notifications have not been set up, see Notifications for more information.
4. Review your entries and selections.
5. Click Save.