containers.podman.podman_containers inventory – Inventory plugin that discovers Podman containers as hosts

Note

This inventory plugin is part of the containers.podman collection (version 1.20.2).

You might already have this collection installed if you are using the ansible package. It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install containers.podman.

To use it in a playbook, specify: containers.podman.podman_containers.

New in containers.podman 1.18.0

Synopsis
Parameters
Examples

Synopsis

Discover running (and optionally stopped) Podman containers on the local host and add them as inventory hosts.
Each discovered host is assigned an Ansible connection plugin so tasks execute inside the container without SSH.

Parameters

Parameter	Comments
connection_plugin string	Fully-qualified connection plugin to use for discovered hosts. Default: `"containers.podman.podman"`
executable string	Path to the `podman` executable. Default: `"podman"` Configuration: Environment variable: `ANSIBLE_PODMAN_EXECUTABLE`
filters dictionary	Include/exclude selection by attributes - `name`, `id`, `image`, `status`, or `label.<key>`. Default: `{}`
group_by_image boolean	Add containers to a group derived from image name (e.g., `image_node_14`). Choices: `false` `true` ← (default)
group_by_label list / elements=string	Label keys to group containers by (`label_<key>_<value>`). Default: `[]`
groups dictionary	Add hosts to groups based on Jinja2 conditionals. Default: `{}`
include_stopped boolean	Whether to include stopped/exited containers. Choices: `false` ← (default) `true`
keyed_groups list / elements=dictionary	Create groups based on hostvars/labels. Default: `[]`
label_selectors dictionary	Key/value labels that must match (all) for a container to be included. Default: `{}`
name_patterns list / elements=string	Glob patterns to match container names or IDs; empty means include all. Default: `[]`
plugin string / required	Token that ensures this is a source file for the ‘containers.podman.podman_containers’ inventory plugin. Choices: `"containers.podman.podman_containers"`
strict boolean	Fail when keyed/composed grouping references missing data. Choices: `false` ← (default) `true`
verbose_output boolean	When true, store raw `podman ps --format json` entry under `podman_ps` host var. Choices: `false` ← (default) `true`

Examples

plugin: containers.podman.podman_containers
include_stopped: false
label_selectors:
  role: api
connection_plugin: containers.podman.podman

Authors

Sagi Shnaidman (@sshnaidm)

Collection links

© 2012–2018 Michael DeHaan
© 2018–2025 Red Hat, Inc.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
https://docs.ansible.com/projects/ansible/latest/collections/containers/podman/podman_containers_inventory.html