As a result of #4670 and the safe decision to not memoize
machine.ssh_info (see 89a4a29d65 and
5036d16461), it is preferable to store the
ssh_info hashes and avoid multiple function calls when generating the
ansible inventory.
Motivation:
By printing out the ansible command used behind the scene, we can ease
the support effort to very quickly identify whether a problem is due to
Vagrant provisioner or Ansible itself.
By referring the directory that contains the generated inventory file,
users can easily provide more settings with additional files stored in
the same directory.
Since the Ansible provisioner now potentially exports ANSIBLE_SSH_ARGS
variable, it is fair to allow to extend the content of this environment
variable (`ssh_args` parameters from ansible.cfg file have lower
priority)
Note that this feature requires to force `--connection=ssh`. This is not
a big deal as `paramiko` mode is deprecated and in most cases `smart`
mode enables `ssh` mode.
- The implicit default limit is always set
- ansible.limit as an empty string won't disable the default limit, but
will be passed as "--limit=" argument and ansible-playbook will return
an error (provided host list is empty)
- Support arbitrary depth of "groups of groups of ... groups"
- Skip ':vars' suffix, but allow group names with ':' (yes, Ansible
accepts this character)
- Like for groups of machines, groups of groups can result "empty", but
it is not an issue for Ansible. Recursive filter on the group tree is
a bit hard to implement, and don't brind real added value at Vagrant
level.
Except ':children' for groups of groups, it is safer to avoid generating
':suffix' blocks. At the moment Ansible only supports (but doesn't
recommend) group variables (:vars), and the Vagrant Ansible provisioner
won't support this way to define variables.
Syntax errors in `ansible.groups` definition are not well handled:
Error returned: undefined method `each' for "machine1":String (NoMethodError)
Being tolerant here doesn't hurt and may avoid people get
confused/annoyed.
env.active_machines can potentiall return 'invalid' machines:
- Ignore machines that are not declared in current Vagrantfile
- Warn when machines are missing (it usually occurs when the VM is
removed without `vagrant destroy` and some orphan metadata remains
in .vagrant/machines/...)
The Ansible provisioner will now only create a single inventory file named,
"vagrant_ansible_inventory". All defined Vagrant machines will be added to
this inventory file. Provisioning will now include a "--limit=#{machine}"
option to scope Ansible provisioning tasks to just the current machine. Setting
the Ansible provisioner's "limit" config option will override the new default
limit. Ansible provisioning scripts will now have access to all other defined
machines and what groups they reside in.
Without this change, it is not possible to pass more than one "raw"
argument, which was not the expected behavior. In addition to Array
format, String (for a single argument) is still accepted (for sake of
"backward compatibility" and ease of use).
Note: Due to low/expert usage of this option, I think that it is not
necessary to add more robust validation on this parameter (e.g. Array
of String type checking or argument syntax pattern matching). Use it at
your own risk ;-)
It is an under-documented feature that one can specify a directory as
the Ansible inventory source, not just a single file. In that case,
Ansible merges the contents of flat files and any executable inventory
plugins found in the directory.
This is useful, for instance, to put localhost in your inventory for use
with `local_action` even if your entire infrastructure is otherwise on
EC2 or some other dynamic inventory source. I also use a flat file to
create aliases for host groups automatically generated from the EC2 API,
like "staging" for `tag_Environment_staging`.
In eb70c0d6bb we were trying to compare a Subprocess::Result to a
Fixnum, resulting in Vagrant always reporting failure regardless of
Ansible's exit code.