How to pass array to ansible extra-vars from bash script

Question

I'm trying to write a bash script that will invoke ansible playbook with extra-vars. Some of this vars is an array of strings with spaces. So i am very confused in how to pass them correctly. I already tried many combinations of quotes and slashes. So I came here for help.

ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml playbook.yml --extra-vars \
'username="${login}" fullname="${username}" password="${password}" groups="['Users','Remote Desktop Users']"';

Andrew Vickers · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-31 16:34:24Z

4

This is what you need to know about bash variables and quoting:

For the following examples, the variable ${text} is set to Hello:

Variables are expanded inside double quotes. e.g. "${text}" => Hello
Variables are not expanded inside single quotes. e.g. '${text}' => ${text}
Single quotes have no special meaning inside double quotes and vice-versa. e.g. "'${text}'" => 'Hello' and '"${text}"' => "${text}"
If you need to place a double-quote inside a double-quoted string, or a single quote inside a single-quoted string, then it must be escaped. e.g. "\"${text}\"" => "Hello" and '\'${text}\'' => '${text}'

With all that said, in your case, you want the variables to be expanded, so you should enclose the entire --extra-vars value in double quotes. According to the Ansible website, the value of each of these extra variables does not need to be quoted, unless it contains spaces. To be safe, you can quote the variables as you might not be able to control their values.

Try this. I have added extra line breaks to make the code easier to understand:

ansible-playbook -i inventory.yml playbook.yml --extra-vars \
  "username='${login}' \
   fullname='${username}' \
   password='${password}' \
   groups=['Users','Remote Desktop Users'] \
  "

answered Oct 31, 2019 at 16:34

Andrew Vickers

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1 Comment

Andrew Vickers Over a year ago

I am not clear about the exact format of the --extra-vars parameter when combining string and non-string data, as you have done. It is possible that you will need to format the whole string as JSON. In which case, you might have the most luck using jq to create a JSON string from your inputs, and then passing that in as a parameter to ansible-playbook

Pavel Polushin · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-01 10:29:08Z

1

It seems that variable name 'groups' is reserved by ansible. I changed name, and script starts working. The answer of Andrew Vickers is also correct.

answered Nov 1, 2019 at 10:29

Pavel Polushin

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1 Comment

Dave Over a year ago

This. I was using the variable action which is reserved. Also I just ended up using a -e for each variable.

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