Why I cannot prompt for a variable that will be shared by multiple plays (ansible 1.6.5)

Question

I have distilled a playbook that has three plays. The goal is to collect the database password from a prompt in one play and then use the same password in the other two plays.

Answer 1

Improvising gae123's answer, in case if your hosts are added dynamically, it will not be possible to get and set the fact on the existing group of servers, in which case localhost can be used to set and get.

---
- name: database password
  hosts: localhost
  vars_prompt:
    - name: "db_password"
      prompt: "Enter Database Password for databse user root"
      default: "root"
  tasks:
    - set_fact:
        db_root_password: "{{db_password}}"

- hosts: dbservers
  vars:
    - db_root_password: "{{ hostvars['localhost']['db_root_password'] }}"
  tasks:
    - command: echo {{db_root_password | mandatory }}


- hosts: webservers
  vars:
    - db_root_password: "{{ hostvars['localhost']['db_root_password'] }}"
  tasks:
    - command: echo {{db_root_password | mandatory }}

Answer 2

I ended up taking user3037143 answer for my localhost sudo password problem:

---
- hosts: localhost
  tags:
    - always
  vars_prompt:
    - name: sudo_password
      prompt: "Sudo password for localhost ONLY"
  tasks:
    - set_fact: ansible_become_password={{ sudo_password }}
      no_log: true

Now it's shared between every include playbooks I have.

I'm on ansible > 2.

Answer 3

I have found the following workaround using set_fact to assign the variable entered by a user into a variable with playbook scope. It seems that var_prompt variables are not like facts and other variables, its scope is restricted in the play that prompts for them not the entire playbook. I am not sure if this is a feature or a bug.

---

- name: database password
  hosts:
    - webservers
    - dbservers
  vars_prompt:
    - name: "db_password"
      prompt: "Enter Database Password for databse user root"
      default: "root"
  tasks:
    - set_fact:
        db_root_password: "{{db_password}}"

- hosts: dbservers
  tasks:
    - command: echo {{db_root_password | mandatory }}


- hosts: webservers
  tasks:
    - command: echo {{db_root_password | mandatory }}