Can't access register variable in a loop - json

Question

I've been following this example playbook to create rackspace servers using Ansible
http://nicholaskuechler.com/2015/01/09/build-rackspace-cloud-servers-ansible-virtualenv/
Which works great, but only works on one server at a time, so I am trying to make it more dynamic, using with_items to loop through the number of servers I want to build
tasks:
- name: Rackspace cloud server build request
local_action:
module: rax
credentials: "{{ credentials }}"
name: "{{ item }}"
flavor: "{{ flavor }}"
image: "{{ image }}"
region: "{{ region }}"
files: "{{ files }}"
wait: yes
state: present
networks:
- private
- public
with_items:
- server-app-01
- server-app-02
register: rax
This creates the servers fine, but when I try and add this to the deploy group using the method in the link, I get an error, as expected as now there is a 'results' key I"ve tried all kinds of ways to try and target this in the way that I perceive the documentation to allude to:
- name: Add new cloud server to host group
local_action:
module: add_host
hostname: "{{ item.success.name }}"
ansible_ssh_host: "{{ item.success.rax_accessipv4 }}"
ansible_ssh_user: root
groupname: deploy
with_items: rax.results
(I’ve also tried many other kinds of ways to target this)
But I get ‘One or more undefined variables: ‘list object’ has no attribute ‘rax_accessipv4”
This is a stripped down version of the object I get back from rax, through debug. These servers don't exist anymore.
http://pastebin.com/NRvM7anS
Can anyone tell me where I'm going wrong I'm starting to go a bit mad

Answer 1

If you notice the type of rax.results.success is list.
So this: hostname: "{{ item.success.name }}"
should be
hostname: "{{ item.success[0].name }}" or
hostname: "{{ item['success'][0]['name'] }}"
.
{
"changed": true,
"msg": "All items completed",
"results": [
{
"instances": [
{
"name": "server-app-01",
"rax_accessipv4": "134.213.51.171",
"rax_accessipv6": "2a00:1a48:7808:101:be76:4eff:fe08:5251",
}
],
"item": "server-app-01",
"success": [
{
"name": "server-app-01",
"rax_accessipv4": "134.213.51.171",
"rax_accessipv6": "2a00:1a48:7808:101:be76:4eff:fe08:5251",
}
],
"timeout": []
},
......
}

Answer 2

I was just wrestling with this Friday. Here is my solution:
---
- name: Provision rackspace webheads
hosts: localhost
gather_facts: false
max_fail_percentage: 10
tasks:
- name: Provision a set of instances
local_action:
group: servers
count: 5
exact_count: yes
credentials: cred.ini
flavor: <FLAVOR ID>
group: raxhosts
image: <IMAGE ID>
key_name: <SSH KEYNAME>
module: rax
name: webheads
state: present
wait: yes
register: rax
- name: Add new instances to the group 'raxhosts'
local_action:
module: add_host
hostname: "{{ item.name }}"
ansible_ssh_host: "{{ item.rax_accessipv4 }}"
ansible_ssh_pass: "{{ item.rax_adminpass }}"
groupname: raxhosts
with_items: rax.success
when: rax.action == 'create'
- name: Wait for hosts
local_action: wait_for host={{ item.rax_accessipv4 }} port=22 delay=60 timeout=600 state=started
with_items: rax.success
Here is what my cred.ini looks like:
[rackspace_cloud]
username =
api_key =
Run it like so:
RAX_CREDS_FILE=cred.ini RAX_REGION=DFW ansible-playbook <playbook>.yml