Using Lookups

Lookup plugins allow access of data in Ansible from outside sources. These plugins are evaluated on the Ansible control machine, and can include reading the filesystem but also contacting external datastores and services. These values are then made available using the standard templating system in Ansible, and are typically used to load variables or templates with information from those systems.

• Intro to Lookups: Getting File Contents
• The Password Lookup
• The CSV File Lookup
• The INI File Lookup
• The Credstash Lookup
• The DNS Lookup (dig)
• More Lookups

Intro to Lookups: Getting File Contents

The file lookup is the most basic lookup type.

Contents can be read off the filesystem as follows:

---
- hosts: all
  vars:
     contents: "{{ lookup('file', '/etc/foo.txt') }}"

  tasks:

     - debug: msg="the value of foo.txt is {{ contents }}"

The Password Lookup

password generates a random plaintext password and stores it in a file at a given filepath.

(Docs about crypted save modes are pending)

If the file exists previously, it will retrieve its contents, behaving just like with_file. Usage of variables like “{{ inventory_hostname }}” in the filepath can be used to set up random passwords per host (which simplifies password management in ‘host_vars’ variables).

Generated passwords contain a random mix of upper and lowercase ASCII letters, the numbers 0-9 and punctuation (”. , : - _”). The default length of a generated password is 20 characters. This length can be changed by passing an extra parameter:

---
- hosts: all

  tasks:

    # create a mysql user with a random password:
    - mysql_user: name={{ client }}
                  password="{{ lookup('password', 'credentials/' + client + '/' + tier + '/' + role + '/mysqlpassword length=15') }}"
                  priv={{ client }}_{{ tier }}_{{ role }}.*:ALL

    (...)

Caution: Since this runs on the ansible host as the user running the playbook, and “become” does not apply, the target file must be readable by the playbook user, or, if it does not exist, the playbook user must have sufficient privileges to create it. (So, for example, attempts to write into areas such as /etc will fail unless the entire playbook is being run as root).

Starting in version 1.4, password accepts a “chars” parameter to allow defining a custom character set in the generated passwords. It accepts comma separated list of names that are either string module attributes (ascii_letters,digits, etc) or are used literally:

---
- hosts: all

  tasks:

    # create a mysql user with a random password using only ascii letters:
    - mysql_user: name={{ client }}
                  password="{{ lookup('password', '/tmp/passwordfile chars=ascii_letters') }}"
                  priv={{ client }}_{{ tier }}_{{ role }}.*:ALL

    # create a mysql user with a random password using only digits:
    - mysql_user: name={{ client }}
                  password="{{ lookup('password', '/tmp/passwordfile chars=digits') }}"
                  priv={{ client }}_{{ tier }}_{{ role }}.*:ALL

    # create a mysql user with a random password using many different char sets:
    - mysql_user: name={{ client }}
                  password="{{ lookup('password', '/tmp/passwordfile chars=ascii_letters,digits,hexdigits,punctuation') }}"
                  priv={{ client }}_{{ tier }}_{{ role }}.*:ALL

    (...)

To enter comma use two commas ‘,,’ somewhere - preferably at the end. Quotes and double quotes are not supported.

The CSV File Lookup

The csvfile lookup reads the contents of a file in CSV (comma-separated value) format. The lookup looks for the row where the first column matches keyname, and returns the value in the second column, unless a different column is specified.

The example below shows the contents of a CSV file named elements.csv with information about the periodic table of elements:

Symbol,Atomic Number,Atomic Mass
H,1,1.008
He,2,4.0026
Li,3,6.94
Be,4,9.012
B,5,10.81

We can use the csvfile plugin to look up the atomic number or atomic of Lithium by its symbol:

- debug: msg="The atomic number of Lithium is {{ lookup('csvfile', 'Li file=elements.csv delimiter=,') }}"
- debug: msg="The atomic mass of Lithium is {{ lookup('csvfile', 'Li file=elements.csv delimiter=, col=2') }}"

The csvfile lookup supports several arguments. The format for passing arguments is:

lookup('csvfile', 'key arg1=val1 arg2=val2 ...')

The first value in the argument is the key, which must be an entry that appears exactly once in column 0 (the first column, 0-indexed) of the table. All other arguments are optional.

Field	Default	Description
file	ansible.csv	Name of the file to load
col	1	The column to output, indexed by 0
delimiter	TAB	Delimiter used by CSV file. As a special case, tab can be specified as either TAB or t.
default	empty string	Default return value if the key is not in the csv file
encoding	utf-8	Encoding (character set) of the used CSV file (added in version 2.1)

The INI File Lookup

The ini lookup reads the contents of a file in INI format (key1=value1). This plugin retrieve the value on the right side after the equal sign (‘=’) of a given section ([section]). You can also read a property file which - in this case - does not contain section.

Here’s a simple example of an INI file with user/password configuration:

[production]
# My production information
user=robert
pass=somerandompassword

[integration]
# My integration information
user=gertrude
pass=anotherpassword

We can use the ini plugin to lookup user configuration:

- debug: msg="User in integration is {{ lookup('ini', 'user section=integration file=users.ini') }}"
- debug: msg="User in production  is {{ lookup('ini', 'user section=production  file=users.ini') }}"

Another example for this plugin is for looking for a value on java properties. Here’s a simple properties we’ll take as an example:

user.name=robert
user.pass=somerandompassword

You can retrieve the user.name field with the following lookup:

- debug: msg="user.name is {{ lookup('ini', 'user.name type=properties file=user.properties') }}"

The ini lookup supports several arguments like the csv plugin. The format for passing arguments is:

lookup('ini', 'key [type=<properties|ini>] [section=section] [file=file.ini] [re=true] [default=<defaultvalue>]')

The first value in the argument is the key, which must be an entry that appears exactly once on keys. All other arguments are optional.

Field	Default	Description
type	ini	Type of the file. Can be ini or properties (for java properties).
file	ansible.ini	Name of the file to load
section	global	Default section where to lookup for key.
re	False	The key is a regexp.
default	empty string	return value if the key is not in the ini file

The Credstash Lookup

Credstash is a small utility for managing secrets using AWS’s KMS and DynamoDB: https://github.com/LuminalOSS/credstash

First, you need to store your secrets with credstash:

$ credstash put my-github-password secure123

my-github-password has been stored

Example usage:

---
- name: "Test credstash lookup plugin -- get my github password"
  debug: msg="Credstash lookup! {{ lookup('credstash', 'my-github-password') }}"

You can specify regions or tables to fetch secrets from:

---
- name: "Test credstash lookup plugin -- get my other password from us-west-1"
  debug: msg="Credstash lookup! {{ lookup('credstash', 'my-other-password', region='us-west-1') }}"


- name: "Test credstash lookup plugin -- get the company's github password"
  debug: msg="Credstash lookup! {{ lookup('credstash', 'company-github-password', table='company-passwords') }}"

If you use the context feature when putting your secret, you can get it by passing a dictionary to the context option like this:

---
- name: test
  hosts: localhost
  vars:
    context:
      app: my_app
      environment: production
  tasks:

  - name: "Test credstash lookup plugin -- get the password with a context passed as a variable"
    debug: msg="{{ lookup('credstash', 'some-password', context=context) }}"

  - name: "Test credstash lookup plugin -- get the password with a context defined here"
    debug: msg="{{ lookup('credstash', 'some-password', context=dict(app='my_app', environment='production')) }}"

If you’re not using 2.0 yet, you can do something similar with the credstash tool and the pipe lookup (see below):

debug: msg="Poor man's credstash lookup! {{ lookup('pipe', 'credstash -r us-west-1 get my-other-password') }}"

The DNS Lookup (dig)

The dig lookup runs queries against DNS servers to retrieve DNS records for a specific name (FQDN - fully qualified domain name). It is possible to lookup any DNS record in this manner.

There is a couple of different syntaxes that can be used to specify what record should be retrieved, and for which name. It is also possible to explicitly specify the DNS server(s) to use for lookups.

In its simplest form, the dig lookup plugin can be used to retrieve an IPv4 address (DNS A record) associated with FQDN:

- debug: msg="The IPv4 address for example.com. is {{ lookup('dig', 'example.com.')}}"

In addition to (default) A record, it is also possible to specify a different record type that should be queried. This can be done by either passing-in additional parameter of format qtype=TYPE to the dig lookup, or by appending /TYPE to the FQDN being queried. For example:

- debug: msg="The TXT record for example.org. is {{ lookup('dig', 'example.org.', 'qtype=TXT') }}"
- debug: msg="The TXT record for example.org. is {{ lookup('dig', 'example.org./TXT') }}"

If multiple values are associated with the requested record, the results will be returned as a comma-separated list. In such cases you may want to pass option wantlist=True to the plugin, which will result in the record values being returned as a list over which you can iterate later on:

- debug: msg="One of the MX records for gmail.com. is {{ item }}"
  with_items: "{{ lookup('dig', 'gmail.com./MX', wantlist=True) }}"

In case of reverse DNS lookups (PTR records), you can also use a convenience syntax of format IP_ADDRESS/PTR. The following three lines would produce the same output:

- debug: msg="Reverse DNS for 192.0.2.5 is {{ lookup('dig', '192.0.2.5/PTR') }}"
- debug: msg="Reverse DNS for 192.0.2.5 is {{ lookup('dig', '5.2.0.192.in-addr.arpa./PTR') }}"
- debug: msg="Reverse DNS for 192.0.2.5 is {{ lookup('dig', '5.2.0.192.in-addr.arpa.', 'qtype=PTR') }}"

By default, the lookup will rely on system-wide configured DNS servers for performing the query. It is also possible to explicitly specify DNS servers to query using the @DNS_SERVER_1,DNS_SERVER_2,...,DNS_SERVER_N notation. This needs to be passed-in as an additional parameter to the lookup. For example:

- debug: msg="Querying 198.51.100.23 for IPv4 address for example.com. produces {{ lookup('dig', 'example.com', '@198.51.100.23') }}"

In some cases the DNS records may hold a more complex data structure, or it may be useful to obtain the results in a form of a dictionary for future processing. The dig lookup supports parsing of a number of such records, with the result being returned as a dictionary. This way it is possible to easily access such nested data. This return format can be requested by passing-in the flat=0 option to the lookup. For example:

- debug: msg="XMPP service for gmail.com. is available at {{ item.target }} on port {{ item.port }}"
  with_items: "{{ lookup('dig', '_xmpp-server._tcp.gmail.com./SRV', 'flat=0', wantlist=True) }}"

Take note that due to the way Ansible lookups work, you must pass the wantlist=True argument to the lookup, otherwise Ansible will report errors.

Currently the dictionary results are supported for the following records:

Record	Fields
ALL	owner, ttl, type
A	address
AAAA	address
CNAME	target
DNAME	target
DLV	algorithm, digest_type, key_tag, digest
DNSKEY	flags, algorithm, protocol, key
DS	algorithm, digest_type, key_tag, digest
HINFO	cpu, os
LOC	latitude, longitude, altitude, size, horizontal_precision, vertical_precision
MX	preference, exchange
NAPTR	order, preference, flags, service, regexp, replacement
NS	target
NSEC3PARAM	algorithm, flags, iterations, salt
PTR	target
RP	mbox, txt
SOA	mname, rname, serial, refresh, retry, expire, minimum
SPF	strings
SRV	priority, weight, port, target
SSHFP	algorithm, fp_type, fingerprint
TLSA	usage, selector, mtype, cert
TXT	strings

More Lookups

Various lookup plugins allow additional ways to iterate over data. In Loops you will learn how to use them to walk over collections of numerous types. However, they can also be used to pull in data from remote sources, such as shell commands or even key value stores. This section will cover lookup plugins in this capacity.

Here are some examples:

---
- hosts: all

  tasks:

     - debug: msg="{{ lookup('env','HOME') }} is an environment variable"

     - debug: msg="{{ item }} is a line from the result of this command"
       with_lines:
         - cat /etc/motd

     - debug: msg="{{ lookup('pipe','date') }} is the raw result of running this command"

     # redis_kv lookup requires the Python redis package
     - debug: msg="{{ lookup('redis_kv', 'redis://localhost:6379,somekey') }} is value in Redis for somekey"

     # dnstxt lookup requires the Python dnspython package
     - debug: msg="{{ lookup('dnstxt', 'example.com') }} is a DNS TXT record for example.com"

     - debug: msg="{{ lookup('template', './some_template.j2') }} is a value from evaluation of this template"

     # loading a json file from a template as a string
     - debug: msg="{{ lookup('template', './some_json.json.j2', convert_data=False) }} is a value from evaluation of this template"


     - debug: msg="{{ lookup('etcd', 'foo') }} is a value from a locally running etcd"

     # shelvefile lookup retrieves a string value corresponding to a key inside a Python shelve file
     - debug: msg="{{ lookup('shelvefile', 'file=path_to_some_shelve_file.db key=key_to_retrieve') }}

     # The following lookups were added in 1.9
     - debug: msg="{{item}}"
       with_url:
            - 'https://github.com/gremlin.keys'

     # outputs the cartesian product of the supplied lists
     - debug: msg="{{item}}"
       with_cartesian:
            - list1
            - list2
            - list3

As an alternative you can also assign lookup plugins to variables or use them elsewhere. This macros are evaluated each time they are used in a task (or template):

vars:
  motd_value: "{{ lookup('file', '/etc/motd') }}"

tasks:

  - debug: msg="motd value is {{ motd_value }}"