Using primary_ip instead of resolved IP from DNS

[obol89]

Hi All,

I'm using nb_inventory as our dynamic inventory source.
It looks like ansible is trying to use primary_ip from netbox when reaching the host, instead of using DNS name and get IP from our DNS server.
We changed the name of one of our hosts recently, let's say from server1 to server2. It had interface eth0 with assigned address 10.9.61.82/24 set as a primary_ip.
nslookup was resolving a different address that is 192.168.249.67/24, and it is correct according to our DNS server.
I was able to reach this host on its correct address with Ansible, after I've removed the primary_ip from Netbox.

I was trying to play with various parameters, but nothing helped. How to avoid situation like that? Is this normal behaviour or some misconfiguration on our side?

[sc68cal]

The inventory plugin supports two options:

• ansible_host_dns_name
• dns_name

Consult the documentation for their usage, but in general the inventory plugin depends on primary_ip for setting the ansible_host value, so you need to ensure that your NetBox data is up to date and correct. Both settings rely on looking up the NetBox IPAddress object that has been set as the primary_ip for a device, and then looking at the dns_name value of the NetBox object..

If you are relying on DNS instead of NetBox to manage the IP address that is used to access a device, you may not want to use the inventory plugin, and instead use the query plugin.

I have not used the inventory plugin extensively and have more experience using the query plugin, so I could be mistaken, but this is based on reading the code over coffee.

[wols]

Today testet:

ansible-inventory [core 2.15.4]

# netbox_inventory.yml
plugin: netbox.netbox.nb_inventory
ansible_host_dns_name: False

ansible-inventory -i netbox_inventory.yml --list

"APU2C4": {
  "ansible_host": "192.168.1.10",

---

# netbox_inventory.yml
plugin: netbox.netbox.nb_inventory
ansible_host_dns_name: True

"APU2C4": {
  "ansible_host": "apu.my.domain",