v.md

vars plugin

I hope this is somewhat right; the documentation is not optimal. I've finally managed to have a vars plugin load only once (i.e. I understand the count of "JPJPJP" lines).

ansible.cfg

[defaults]

inventory = inventory
vars_plugins = vars/

# the following finally works for me: it loads the plugin which runs once
# per group / host. As I have one host only and there are two predefined groups
# the result is three runs:
#    JPJPJP,  /Users/jpm/take/training/ansible-tests/tobias [all] None my_group
#    JPJPJP,  /Users/jpm/take/training/ansible-tests/tobias [ungrouped] None my_group
#    JPJPJP,  /Users/jpm/take/training/ansible-tests/tobias [localhost] None my_host
# (If I add a group with one host, the plugin is invoked 5x)

run_vars_plugins = start

# In addition to `start' above, this option (configured as an option in the plugin)
# disables the plugin if I set it to anything other than 'inventory'. ?!

[vars_custom_hostvars]
jp_vars_stage = inventory

inventory

localhost ansible_connection=local

jpvars.yml

- hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
  - debug: var=newpassword

vars/jp.py

from ansible.inventory.host import Host
from ansible.inventory.host import Group
from ansible.plugins.vars import BaseVarsPlugin

DOCUMENTATION = '''
    name: jp
    author: JP Mens 
    short_description: Vars demo plugin
    version_added: '0.0.0'
    description:
        - Don't load any files
    options:
      stage:
        ini:
          - key: jp_vars_stage
            section: vars_custom_hostvars
        env:
          - name: ANSIBLE_JP_VARS_PLUGIN_STAGE
'''

class VarsModule(BaseVarsPlugin):

    def get_vars(self, loader, path, entities, cache=None):

        if not isinstance(entities, list):
            entities = [entities]

        super(VarsModule, self).get_vars(loader, path, entities)

        data = {}
        for entity in entities:
            if isinstance(entity, Host):
                subdir = "my_host"
            elif isinstance(entity, Group):
                subdir = "my_group"

            print("JPJPJP, ", path, entities, cache, subdir)

            data["newpassword"] = "ginton1cwithlemon"
        return data

output

$ ansible-playbook jpvars.yml
JPJPJP,  /Users/jpm/take/training/ansible-tests/tobias [all] None my_group
JPJPJP,  /Users/jpm/take/training/ansible-tests/tobias [ungrouped] None my_group
JPJPJP,  /Users/jpm/take/training/ansible-tests/tobias [localhost] None my_host

PLAY [localhost] ***************************************************************

TASK [debug] *******************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
    "newpassword": "ginton1cwithlemon"
}

PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=1    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0