Ansible loops and Azure resource dependencies - azure

Question

I'm using Ansible to provision resources to Azure. I'd like to have one task for each type of resource I want to deploy to Azure which loops through a list of dictionaries, so I can just add more dicts in case I want more resources provisioned. I'd like to define each resource variable only once.
The problem that arises with this is dependencies to other resources. Resource groups need to be provisioned before virtual networks, virtual networks before subnets and so on. Yet the information of the top level resources is still needed when provisioning the bottom level ones.
Here's the first attempt, with all of the required top level resource vars defined in the bottom level resource vars as well:
- hosts: localhost
connection: local
vars:
resourcegroups:
- name: "eh_test_rg01"
location: "westeurope"
- name: "eh_test_rg02"
location: "eastus"
virtualnetworks:
- name: "eh_test_vn01"
cidr: 10.15.0.0/22
resource_group: "eh_test_rg01"
- name: "eh_test_vn02"
cidr: 10.15.4.0/22
resource_group: "eh_test_rg02"
DMZ_subnets:
- name: "eh_test_dmzsn01"
cidr: 10.15.1.0/24
vnet: "eh_test_vn01"
location: "westeurope"
resource_group: "eh_test_rg01"
- name: "eh_test_dmzsn02"
cidr: 10.15.5.0/24
vnet: "eh_test_vn02"
location: "eastus"
resource_group: "eh_test_rg02"
app_subnets:
- name: "eh_test_appsn01"
cidr: 10.15.2.0/24
vnet: "eh_test_vn01"
location: "westeurope"
resource_group: "eh_test_rg01"
- name: "eh_test_appsn02"
cidr: 10.15.6.0/24
vnet: "eh_test_vn02"
location: "eastus"
resource_group: "eh_test_rg02"
gateway_subnets:
- name: "GatewaySubnet"
cidr: 10.15.0.0/24
vnet: "eh_test_vn01"
resource_group: "eh_test_rg01"
location: "westeurope"
- name: "GatewaySubnet"
cidr: 10.15.4.0/24
vnet: "eh_test_vn02"
resource_group: "eh_test_rg02"
location: "eastus"
tasks:
- name: Create resource Group
azure_rm_resourcegroup:
name: "{{ item.name }}"
location: "{{ item.location }}"
with_items:
- "{{ resourcegroups }}"
tags: resourcegroups
- name: Create vnet
azure_rm_virtualnetwork:
name: "{{ item.name }}"
resource_group: "{{ item.resource_group }}"
address_prefixes_cidr: "{{ item.cidr }}"
with_items:
- "{{ virtualnetworks }}"
tags: vnets
- name: Create subnets
azure_rm_subnet:
name: "{{ item.name }}"
resource_group: "{{ item.resource_group }}"
address_prefix: "{{ item.cidr }}"
virtual_network: "{{ item.vnet }}"
with_items:
- "{{ DMZ_subnets }}"
- "{{ app_subnets }}"
- "{{ gateway_subnets }}"
tags: subnets
As can be seen from above example, by the subnets dicts there's already 2 vars I have defined before. The deeper we go into the hierarchy, the more excess dict entries will come into play.
I tried to build the relationships into the variable structure, but ran into issues looping though the new variable structure. With_subelements worked fine for looping two lists of dictionaries, but it can't handle 3 or more.
- hosts: localhost
connection: local
vars:
resourcegroups:
- name: "eh_test_rg01"
location: westeurope
virtualnetworks:
- name: "eh_test_vn01"
cidr: 10.15.0.0/22
subnets:
- name: GatewaySubnet
cidr: 10.15.0.0/24
- name: eh_test_dmzsn01
cidr: 10.15.1.0/24
- name: eh_test_appsn01
cidr: 10.15.2.0/24
- name: "eh_test_rg02"
location: westeurope
virtualnetworks:
- name: "eh_test_vn02"
cidr: 10.15.4.0/22
subnets:
- name: GatewaySubnet
cidr: 10.15.4.0/24
- name: eh_test_dmzsn02
cidr: 10.15.5.0/24
- name: eh_test_appsn02
cidr: 10.15.6.0/24
tasks:
- name: Create resource Group
azure_rm_resourcegroup:
name: "{{ item.name }}"
location: "{{ item.location }}"
with_items:
- "{{ resourcegroups }}"
tags: resourcegroups
- name: Create vnet
azure_rm_virtualnetwork:
name: "{{ item.1.name }}"
resource_group: "{{ item.0.name }}"
address_prefixes_cidr: "{{ item.1.cidr }}"
with_subelements:
- "{{ resourcegroups }}"
- virtualnetworks
tags: vnets
# Blows up at this point, with_subelements does not support more lists than 2
- name: Create subnets
azure_rm_subnet:
name: "{{ item.2.name }}"
resource_group: "{{ item.0.name }}"
address_prefix: "{{ item.2.cidr }}"
virtual_network: "{{ item.1.vnet }}"
with_subelements:
- "{{ resourcegroups }}"
- virtualnetworks
- subnets
tags: subnets
What would be the best way to approach this problem? Do I need to define the vars differently, make some kind of helper tasks to create variable structures before running the task itself, use different loops or..?
As far as I know, I can't make references to other dict values which are contained in a list of dictionaries using YAML.

Answer 1

I would go totally other route and use arm templates, that a much better way of provisioning things on Azure, you can use native Ansible tasks for that as well:
http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/azure_rm_deployment_module.html