Defining Ansible variables

Ansible uses variables to store data attributes; they can be at the node, group, or default level. You will define the two most common variable types in this section: host and group variables. It’s important to know that, by default, Ansible expects files in specific directories. In the root of the project, these folders are called host_vars and group_vars, respectively.

Let’s demonstrate how to use host_vars and group_vars to show how you might flexibly store NTP configuration data.

In this recipe, you will enrich the Ansible inventory with the following NTP variable data:

1. Set two NTP servers for all hosts to 192.168.1.10 and 192.168.2.10.
2. Set just the client2 Linux host to use 192.168.2.10 and 192.168.3.10.
3. Set the nokia_srlinux group to use 192.168.1.10 and 192.168.3.10.

To properly set up the variables, you must first create files and a directory structure. The following tree output shows the host_vars...