ansible-pull(1)

🎀 NAME

ansible-pull — okay so picture this: it pulls playbooks from a VCS repo and executes them on the target host. That's the whole vibe. 💖

This page is from the ansible-pull(1) manual, filed under System administration commands. Yes bestie, you're in the right place.

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✨ 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] [--flush-cache] [-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 ...]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION

Okay so here's the tea ☕ — ansible-pull is used to pull a remote copy of ansible on each managed node, each one set to run via cron, and update playbook source via a source repository. It literally inverts the default push architecture of ansible into a pull architecture, which honestly has near-limitless scaling potential. It's giving main character energy for real. 👑

⚠️ None of the CLI tools are designed to run concurrently with themselves, so you should use an external scheduler and/or locking to make sure there are no clashing operations. No cap — don't let them collide.

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 and periodic remediation. And using the fetch module to retrieve logs from ansible-pull runs? That would be an excellent way to gather and analyze remote logs from ansible-pull. Obsessed. 🦋

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💅 COMMON OPTIONS

• Playbook(s) — yep, that's the entry, right there at the top, iconic.
• --accept-host-key — adds the hostkey for the repo url if it's 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 ✨
• --flush-cache — clear the fact cache for every host in inventory
• --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' — specify extra arguments to pass to sftp only (e.g. -f, -l)
• --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. 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. 🗣️

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🦋 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 will look for a playbook based on the host's fully-qualified domain name, on the host hostname and finally a playbook named local.yml. Slay, it literally hunts for it three different ways. 🔥

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🌈 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/>. 💖

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⭐ 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.

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🎀 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. Like, all of them. She said what she said. 💅

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👑 AUTHOR

Ansible was originally written by Michael DeHaan. Legend behavior, honestly. 🙌

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💜 COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2018 Red Hat, Inc | Ansible. Ansible is released under the terms of the GPLv3 license.

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🧚 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>>

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And that's a wrap bestie!! 🫶 This lil icon is from Ansible 2.22.0, and yep, that's the ansible-pull(1) manual page you just read top to bottom. Go pull some playbooks, you absolute genius. 💖✨🎀