ansible-pull - Man Page
pulls playbooks from a VCS repo and executes them on target host
Examples (TL;DR)
- Pull a playbook from a VCS and execute a default local.yml playbook:
ansible-pull -U repository_url
- Pull a playbook from a VCS and execute a specific playbook:
ansible-pull -U repository_url playbook
- Pull a playbook from a VCS at a specific branch and execute a specific playbook:
ansible-pull -U repository_url -C branch playbook
- Pull a playbook from a VCS, specify hosts file and execute a specific playbook:
ansible-pull -U repository_url -i hosts_file playbook
Synopsis
- usage: ansible-pull [-h] [--version] [-v] [--private-key PRIVATE_KEY_FILE]
[-u REMOTE_USER] [-c CONNECTION] [-T TIMEOUT] [--ssh-common-args SSH_COMMON_ARGS] [--sftp-extra-args SFTP_EXTRA_ARGS] [--scp-extra-args SCP_EXTRA_ARGS] [--ssh-extra-args SSH_EXTRA_ARGS] [-k | --connection-password-file CONNECTION_PASSWORD_FILE] [--vault-id VAULT_IDS] [-J | --vault-password-file VAULT_PASSWORD_FILES] [-e EXTRA_VARS] [-t TAGS] [--skip-tags SKIP_TAGS] [-i Inventory] [--list-hosts] [-l SUBSET] [-M MODULE_PATH] [-K | --become-password-file BECOME_PASSWORD_FILE] [--purge] [-o] [-s SLEEP] [-f] [-d DEST] [-U URL] [--full] [-C CHECKOUT] [--accept-host-key] [-m MODULE_NAME] [--verify-commit] [--clean] [--track-subs] [--check] [--diff] [playbook.yml ...]
Description
Used to pull a remote copy of ansible on each managed node, each set to run via cron and update playbook source via a source repository. This inverts the default push architecture of ansible into a pull architecture, which has near-limitless scaling potential.
None of the CLI tools are designed to run concurrently with themselves, you should use an external scheduler and/or locking to ensure there are no clashing operations.
The setup playbook can be tuned to change the cron frequency, logging locations, and parameters to ansible-pull. This is useful both for extreme scale-out as well as periodic remediation. Usage of the 'fetch' module to retrieve logs from ansible-pull runs would be an excellent way to gather and analyze remote logs from ansible-pull.
Common Options
Playbook(s)
- --accept-host-key
adds the hostkey for the repo url if not already added
- --become-password-file 'BECOME_PASSWORD_FILE', --become-pass-file 'BECOME_PASSWORD_FILE'
Become password file
- --check
don't make any changes; instead, try to predict some of the changes that may occur
- --clean
modified files in the working repository will be discarded
- --connection-password-file 'CONNECTION_PASSWORD_FILE', --conn-pass-file 'CONNECTION_PASSWORD_FILE'
Connection password file
- --diff
when changing (small) files and templates, show the differences in those files; works great with --check
- --full
Do a full clone, instead of a shallow one.
- --list-hosts
outputs a list of matching hosts; does not execute anything else
- --private-key 'PRIVATE_KEY_FILE', --key-file 'PRIVATE_KEY_FILE'
use this file to authenticate the connection
- --purge
purge checkout after playbook run
- --scp-extra-args 'SCP_EXTRA_ARGS'
specify extra arguments to pass to scp only (e.g. -l)
- --sftp-extra-args 'SFTP_EXTRA_ARGS'
- --skip-tags
only run plays and tasks whose tags do not match these values. This argument may be specified multiple times.
- --ssh-common-args 'SSH_COMMON_ARGS'
specify common arguments to pass to sftp/scp/ssh (e.g. ProxyCommand)
- --ssh-extra-args 'SSH_EXTRA_ARGS'
specify extra arguments to pass to ssh only (e.g. -R)
- --track-subs
submodules will track the latest changes. This is equivalent to specifying the --remote flag to git submodule update
- --vault-id
the vault identity to use. This argument may be specified multiple times.
- --vault-password-file, --vault-pass-file
vault password file
- --verify-commit
verify GPG signature of checked out commit, if it fails abort running the playbook. This needs the corresponding VCS module to support such an operation
- --version
show program's version number, config file location, configured module search path, module location, executable location and exit
- -C 'CHECKOUT', --checkout 'CHECKOUT'
branch/tag/commit to checkout. Defaults to behavior of repository module.
- -J, --ask-vault-password, --ask-vault-pass
ask for vault password
- -K, --ask-become-pass
ask for privilege escalation password
- -M, --module-path
prepend colon-separated path(s) to module library (default={{ ANSIBLE_HOME ~ "/plugins/modules:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules" }}). This argument may be specified multiple times.
- -T 'TIMEOUT', --timeout 'TIMEOUT'
override the connection timeout in seconds (default depends on connection)
- -U 'URL', --url 'URL'
URL of the playbook repository
- -c 'CONNECTION', --connection 'CONNECTION'
connection type to use (default=ssh)
- -d 'DEST', --directory 'DEST'
path to the directory to which Ansible will checkout the repository.
- -e, --extra-vars
set additional variables as key=value or YAML/JSON, if filename prepend with @. This argument may be specified multiple times.
- -f, --force
run the playbook even if the repository could not be updated
- -h, --help
show this help message and exit
- -i, --inventory, --inventory-file
specify inventory host path or comma separated host list. --inventory-file is deprecated. This argument may be specified multiple times.
- -k, --ask-pass
ask for connection password
- -l 'SUBSET', --limit 'SUBSET'
further limit selected hosts to an additional pattern
- -m 'MODULE_NAME', --module-name 'MODULE_NAME'
Repository module name, which ansible will use to check out the repo. Choices are ('git', 'subversion', 'hg', 'bzr'). Default is git.
- -o, --only-if-changed
only run the playbook if the repository has been updated
- -s 'SLEEP', --sleep 'SLEEP'
sleep for random interval (between 0 and n number of seconds) before starting. This is a useful way to disperse git requests
- -t, --tags
only run plays and tasks tagged with these values. This argument may be specified multiple times.
- -u 'REMOTE_USER', --user 'REMOTE_USER'
connect as this user (default=None)
- -v, --verbose
Causes Ansible to print more debug messages. Adding multiple -v will increase the verbosity, the builtin plugins currently evaluate up to -vvvvvv. A reasonable level to start is -vvv, connection debugging might require -vvvv. This argument may be specified multiple times.
Arguments
playbook.yml
The name of one the YAML format files to run as an Ansible playbook.This can be a relative path within the checkout. By default, Ansible willlook for a playbook based on the host's fully-qualified domain name,on the host hostname and finally a playbook named local.yml.
Inventory
Ansible stores the hosts it can potentially operate on in an inventory. This can be an YAML file, ini-like file, a script, directory, list, etc. For additional options, see the documentation on <https://docs.ansible.com/> .
Environment
The following environment variables may be specified.
ANSIBLE_INVENTORY -- Override the default ansible inventory sources
ANSIBLE_LIBRARY -- Override the default ansible module library path
ANSIBLE_CONFIG -- Specify override location for the ansible config file
Many more are available for most options in ansible.cfg
For a full list check <https://docs.ansible.com/> . or use the ansible-config command.
Files
/etc/ansible/hosts -- Default inventory file
/etc/ansible/ansible.cfg -- Config file, used if present
~/.ansible.cfg -- User config file, overrides the default config if present
./ansible.cfg -- Local config file (in current working directory) assumed to be 'project specific' and overrides the rest if present.
As mentioned above, the ANSIBLE_CONFIG environment variable will override all others.
Author
Ansible was originally written by Michael DeHaan.
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Red Hat, Inc | Ansible. Ansible is released under the terms of the GPLv3 license.
See Also
ansible (1), ansible-config (1), ansible-console (1), ansible-doc (1), ansible-galaxy (1), ansible-inventory (1), ansible-playbook (1), ansible-vault (1)
Extensive documentation is available in the documentation site: < <https://docs.ansible.com> >. IRC and mailing list info can be found in file CONTRIBUTING.md, available in: < <https://github.com/ansible/ansible> >