What is Ansible with_items?
The Ansible with_items is a handy plugin to perform loop operations in a playbook. The plugin accepts items and then passes them to the calling module. For example, you can pass a list of packages to install and then give each item in the list to the install task.
NOTE: If an item has a nested list, Ansible will flatten it but not recursion.
To use the with_items plugins, use the with_items keyword in a playbook and pass a list of items under it. You can then call each item within the specified list and perform the required operations.
Basic Usage
The following example illustrates the syntax for the with_items plugin:
- hosts: all
name: with items syntax
debug:
msg: "This is item {{item}}"
with_items:
- "a"
- "b"
- "c"
The above example shows a simple list using the with_items plugin.
If you want to have a nested list, you can do:
- hosts: all
name: nested list
debug:
msg: "Databases {{item}}"
with_items:
- ["MySQL", "PostgreSQL"] - "SQL"
- ["MongoDB", "DocumentDB", "Firestore"] - "NoSQL"
You can also have a list with variables in it, as shown in the example playbook below:
- hosts: all
name: nested list
var1: "{{item.var1}}"
var2: "{{item.var2}}"
with_items:
- {var1: example1, var2: example2}
- {var1: example3, var2: example4}
Ansible with_items Examples
The following examples illustrate how you can use the Ansible with_items module.
- hosts: all
become: true
gather_facts: no
tasks:
- name: create users
user:
name: "{{item}}"
groups: test
state: present
with_items:
- user1
- user2
The playbook above uses with_items to create multiple users.
- hosts: all
become: true
gather_facts: no
tasks:
- name: install packages
apt:
name: "{{item}}"
state: present
with_items:
- apache2
- ufw
- mysql
In the example above, we use the with_items to loop over items and pass them to the apt package installer.
- hosts: all
become: true
gather_facts: no
tasks:
- name: create files
file:
path: "~/{{item.name}}"
state: touch
mode: "{{item.perm}}"
with_items:
- {name: file1, perm: "0777"}
- {name: file2, perm: "0644"}
In the example playbook above, we create a list of files and their respective permissions using the with_items plugin.
Conclusion
This guide discussed how the Ansible with_items plugin works and how to loop over a list of items.
