[FIXED] Ansible ad-hoc inventory not working when executed in a shell command in a Jenkins pipeline?

Issue

Ansible v2.11.x

I have a Jenkins pipeline that does this. All the $VARIABLES are passed-in from the job's parameters.

  withCredentials([string(credentialsId: "VAULT_PASSWORD", variable: "VAULT_PASSWORD")]) {
    stage("Configure $env.IP_ADDRESS") {
      sh """
        ansible-playbook -i \\"$env.IP_ADDRESS,\\" \
                         -e var_host=$env.IP_ADDRESS \
                         -e web_branch=$env.WEB_BRANCH \
                         -e web_version=$env.WEB_VERSION \
                         site.yml
      """
    }
  }

My playbook is this

---
- hosts: "{{ var_host | default('site') }}"

  roles:
     - some_role

I have a groups_vars/all.yml file meant to be used by ad-hoc inventories like this. When I run the pipeline, I simply get the following, and the run does nothing

22:52:29  + ansible-playbook -i "10.x.x.x," -e var_host=10.x.x.x -e web_branch=development -e web_version=81cdedd6fe-20210811_2031 site.yml
22:52:31  [WARNING]: Could not match supplied host pattern, ignoring: 10.x.x.x

If I go on the build node and execute exactly the same command, it works. I can also execute the same command on my Mac, and it works too.

So why does the ad-hoc inventory not work when executed in the pipeline?

Solution

This post gave me a clue

The correct syntax that worked for me is

  withCredentials([string(credentialsId: "VAULT_PASSWORD", variable: "VAULT_PASSWORD")]) {
    stage("Configure $env.IP_ADDRESS") {
      sh """
        ansible-playbook -i $env.IP_ADDRESS, \
                         -e var_host=$env.IP_ADDRESS \
                         -e web_branch=$env.WEB_BRANCH \
                         -e web_version=$env.WEB_VERSION \
                         site.yml
      """
    }
  }

Answered By - Chris F