How to delegate Ansible host variables with set_fact

I ran into an interesting issues about making an service account token on OpenShift accessible by another group of nodes when running a playbook. When you run an oc command and register the output, you face the issue that the registered variable is stored under hostvars of the node name.

Normally you can access hostvars from other nodes like you see below:

"{{ hostvars['hostname']['variable-name'] }}"

I came up with something different and more flexible, instead of accessing hostvars[‘hostname’][‘variable-name’] I am delegating the variable to a group of nodes and make the variable more easily accessible there:

---
- hosts: avi-controller:masters
  gather_facts: false

  pre_tasks:
    - block:
      - name: Get OpenShift token
        command: "oc sa get-token <serveraccount-name> -n <project-name> --config=/etc/origin/master/admin.kubeconfig"
        register: token

      - name: Set serviceaccount token variable and delegate
        set_fact:
          serviceaccount_token: "{{ token.stdout }}"
        delegate_to: "{{ item }}"
        delegate_facts: true
        with_items: "{{ groups['avi-controller'] }}"
      when: ( inventroy_hostname == groups["masters"][0] )
 
 roles:
    - { role: "config", when: "'avi-controller' in group_names" }

In the following Ansible role after pre tasks, you are able to access the variable serviceaccount_token on any member of the group “avi-controller” and use with the rest of your automation code.

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Originally published at techbloc.net.