Loop over multiple lists in netbox_device in Ansible - list

Question

My goal is to create new devices in NetBox with ansible. So, I use netbox_device for this reason. I am getting the required information (device names, types, serial numbers etc) from a json file like the following one:
{
"results":{
"infos": [
{
"device_type": "type1",
"device_name": "name1",
"serial_number": "num1"
},
{
"device_type": "type2",
"device_name": "name2",
"serial_number": "num2"
}
]
}
}
So, what I am doing is that I have this simple task to create 1 new device :
- name: Create new devices within Netbox
netbox_device:
netbox_url: http://url.goes.here
netbox_token: 7575747448..66353
data:
name: name1
device_type: type1
device_role: Core Switch
serial_number: "num1"
site: Main
state: present
This is something simple if someone wants to create one specific new device, but I want to dynamically create new devices while looping some lists with the required info.
In particular, I create from the json file one list with all devices names
ok: [localhost] => {
"ansible_facts": {
"dev_names": [
"nameisone",
"nameistwo"
]
},
"changed": false
}
Then I create another list from the json file with the device types
ok: [localhost] => {
"ansible_facts": {
"dev_types": [
"type_one",
"type_two"
]
},
"changed": false
}
So now I have a task with 1 loop regarding the above lists:
- name: Create new devices within Netbox looping the lists with the required info
netbox_device:
netbox_url: http://url.goes.here
netbox_token: 754544444444404509504959433333333
data:
name: "{{ item }}"
device_type: "{{ item }}"
device_role: "Core Switch"
site: Site
#serial_number: "number"
state: present
loop:
- "{{ dev_names }}"
- "{{ dev_types }} "
This works well only with one list, which means that if I comment out one of the two lists I get no errors.
The error I am getting when I run this task with both my lists is this:
File "/tmp/poioanni/ansible_netbox_device_payload_5W1o8U/ansible_netbox_device_payload.zip/ansible/module_utils/net_tools/netbox/netbox_utils.py", line 352, in normalize_data
AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'lower'
failed: [localhost] (item=[u'nameisone', u'nameistwo']) => {
"ansible_loop_var": "item",
"changed": false,
"item": [
"nameisone",
"nameistwo"
],
Any ideas ?

Answer 1

If you are sure your lists are synchronized, you can use the zip filter, as demonstrated in the below test.yml MVCE playbook.
---
- name: Zip demo
hosts: localhost
gather_facts: false
vars:
"dev_names": [
"nameisone",
"nameistwo"
]
"dev_types": [
"type_one",
"type_two"
]
tasks:
- name: demonstrate how to use the zip filter with a loop
debug:
msg: "Element from first list: {{ item.0 }}. Element from second list: {{ item.1 }}"
loop: "{{ dev_names | zip(dev_types) | list }}"
Which gives:
$ ansible-playbook test.yml
PLAY [Zip demo] ************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
TASK [demonstrate how to use the zip filter with a loop] *******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => (item=['nameisone', 'type_one']) => {
"msg": "Element from first list: nameisone. Element from second list: type_one"
}
ok: [localhost] => (item=['nameistwo', 'type_two']) => {
"msg": "Element from first list: nameistwo. Element from second list: type_two"
}
PLAY RECAP *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
localhost : ok=1 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0