how to define ssh private key for servers fetched by dynamic inventory in files

Question

I met one configuration problem when coding ansible playbook for ssh private key file   As we know  we can define combination with host server  ip  amp  related ssh private key in ansible hosts file for static inventory servers   But i have no idea how to define that with dynamic inventory servers   Ex   --- - hosts  tag Name server1   gather facts  no   roles      - role1  - hosts  tag Name server2   gather facts  no   roles      - roles2   Below command is used to call that playbook   ansible-playbook test yml -i ec2 py --private-key    ssh SSHKEY pem   My question is    How can i define    ssh SSHKEY pem in ansible files rather then in command line I guess there might be one parameter in playbook like  gather facts  to define which private key should be used for above hosts  but there looks like no such parameter  If there is no way to define private key in files  what should be defined in command line if different key file will be used for different dynamic fetched servers for one playbook    Thank you for your comments

User · Answer

The best solution I could find for this problem is to specify private key file in ansible.cfg (I usually keep it in the same folder as a playbook):

[defaults]
inventory=ec2.py
vault_password_file = ~/.vault_pass.txt
host_key_checking = False
private_key_file = /Users/eric/.ssh/secret_key_rsa

Though, it still sets private key globally for all hosts in playbook.

Note: You have to specify full path to the key file - ~user/.ssh/some_key_rsa silently ignored.

User · Answer

I had a similar issue and solved it with a patch to ec2 py and adding some configuration parameters to ec2 ini  The patch takes the value of ec2 key name  prefixes it with the ssh key path  and adds the ssh key suffix to the end  and writes out ansible ssh private key file as this value   The following variables have to be added to ec2 ini in a new  ssh  section  this is optional if the defaults match your environment     ssh    Set the path and suffix for the ssh keys ssh key path      ssh ssh key suffix    pem   Here is the patch for ec2 py   204a205 206  gt       ssh key path       ssh    gt       ssh key suffix     pem   422a425 428  gt            SSH key setup  gt          self ssh key path   os path expanduser config get  ssh    ssh key path     gt          self ssh key suffix   config get  ssh    ssh key suffix    gt   1490a1497  gt          instance vars  ansible ssh private key file     os path join self ssh key path  instance vars  ec2 key name     self ssh key suffix

User · Answer

I m using the following configuration    site yml  - name  Example play   hosts  all   remote user  ansible   become  yes   become method  sudo   vars      ansible ssh private key file    home ansible  ssh id rsa

User · Answer

You can simply define the key to use directly when running the command   ansible-playbook               Super verbose output incl  SSH-Details      -vvvv               The Server to target   Keep the trailing comma       -i  000 000 0 000                 Define the key to use      --private-key    ssh id rsa ansible               The  env  var is needed if  python  is not available      -e  ansible python interpreter  usr bin python3      Needed if  python  is not available             Dry   Run      --check       deploy yml   Copy  Paste   ansible-playbook -vvvv --private-key  Users you  ssh your key deploy yml

User · Answer

TL DR  Specify key file in group variable file  since  tag Name server1  is a group     Note  I m assuming you re using the EC2 external inventory script  If you re using some other dynamic inventory approach  you might need to tweak this solution   This is an issue I ve been struggling with  on and off  for months  and I ve finally found a solution  thanks to Brian Coca s suggestion here  The trick is to use Ansible s group variable mechanisms to automatically pass along the correct SSH key file for the machine you re working with   The EC2 inventory script automatically sets up various groups that you can use to refer to hosts  You re using this in your playbook  in the first play  you re telling Ansible to apply  role1  to the entire  tag Name server1  group  We want to direct Ansible to use a specific SSH key for any host in the  tag Name server1  group  which is where group variable files come in   Assuming that your playbook is located in the  my-playbooks  directory  create files for each group under the  group vars  directory   my-playbooks  -- test yml  -- group vars       -- tag Name server1 yml       -- tag Name server2 yml   Now  any time you refer to these groups in a playbook  Ansible will check the appropriate files  and load any variables you ve defined there   Within each group var file  we can specify the key file to use for connecting to hosts in the group     tag Name server1 yml   --------------------      Variables for EC2 instances named  server1  --- ansible ssh private key file   path to ssh key server1 pem   Now  when you run your playbook  it should automatically pick up the right keys     Using environment vars for portability  I often run playbooks on many different servers  local  remote build server  etc    so I like to parameterize things  Rather than using a fixed path  I have an environment variable called SSH KEYDIR that points to the directory where the SSH keys are stored   In this case  my group vars files look like this  instead     tag Name server1 yml   --------------------      Variables for EC2 instances named  server1  --- ansible ssh private key file      lookup  env   SSH KEYDIR      server1 pem      Further Improvements  There s probably a bunch of neat ways this could be improved  For one thing  you still need to manually specify which key to use for each group  Since the EC2 inventory script includes details about the keypair used for each server  there s probably a way to get the key name directly from the script itself  In that case  you could supply the directory the keys are located in  as above   and have it choose the correct keys based on the inventory data

[ansible] how to define ssh private key for servers fetched by dynamic inventory in files

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