community.general.nmap inventory – Uses nmap to find hosts to target

Note

This inventory plugin is part of the community.general collection (version 6.6.2).

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 community.general. You need further requirements to be able to use this inventory plugin, see Requirements for details.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.general.nmap.

Synopsis

  • Uses a YAML configuration file with a valid YAML extension.

Requirements

The below requirements are needed on the local controller node that executes this inventory.

  • nmap CLI installed

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

address

string / required

Network IP or range of IPs to scan, you can use a simple range (10.2.2.15-25) or CIDR notation.

Configuration:

  • Environment variable: ANSIBLE_NMAP_ADDRESS

    added in community.general 6.6.0

cache

boolean

Toggle to enable/disable the caching of the inventory’s source data, requires a cache plugin setup to work.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

Configuration:

  • INI entry:

    [inventory]
cache = false

  • Environment variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE

cache_connection

string

Cache connection data or path, read cache plugin documentation for specifics.

Configuration:

  • INI entries:

    [defaults]
fact_caching_connection = VALUE

    [inventory]
cache_connection = VALUE

  • Environment variable: ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN_CONNECTION

  • Environment variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_CONNECTION

cache_plugin

string

Cache plugin to use for the inventory’s source data.

Default: "memory"

Configuration:

  • INI entries:

    [defaults]
fact_caching = memory

    [inventory]
cache_plugin = memory

  • Environment variable: ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN

  • Environment variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN

cache_prefix

string

Prefix to use for cache plugin files/tables

Default: "ansible_inventory_"

Configuration:

  • INI entries:

    [default]
fact_caching_prefix = ansible_inventory_

    Removed in: version 2.16 of ansible.builtin

    Why: Fixes typing error in INI section name

    Alternative: Use the ‘defaults’ section instead

    [defaults]
fact_caching_prefix = ansible_inventory_

    [inventory]
cache_prefix = ansible_inventory_

  • Environment variable: ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN_PREFIX

  • Environment variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN_PREFIX

cache_timeout

integer

Cache duration in seconds

Default: 3600

Configuration:

  • INI entries:

    [defaults]
fact_caching_timeout = 3600

    [inventory]
cache_timeout = 3600

  • Environment variable: ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN_TIMEOUT

  • Environment variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_TIMEOUT

compose

dictionary

Create vars from jinja2 expressions.

Default: {}

dns_resolve

boolean

added in community.general 6.1.0

Whether to always (true) or never (false) do DNS resolution.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

exclude

list / elements=string

List of addresses to exclude.

For example 10.2.2.15-25 or 10.2.2.15,10.2.2.16.

Configuration:

  • Environment variable: ANSIBLE_NMAP_EXCLUDE

    added in community.general 6.6.0

groups

dictionary

Add hosts to group based on Jinja2 conditionals.

Default: {}

icmp_timestamp

boolean

added in community.general 6.1.0

Scan via ICMP Timestamp (-PP).

Depending on your system you might need sudo=true for this to work.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

ipv4

boolean

use IPv4 type addresses

Choices:

  • false

  • true ← (default)

ipv6

boolean

use IPv6 type addresses

Choices:

  • false

  • true ← (default)

keyed_groups

list / elements=dictionary

Add hosts to group based on the values of a variable.

Default: []

default_value

string

added in ansible-core 2.12

The default value when the host variable’s value is an empty string.

This option is mutually exclusive with trailing_separator.

key

string

The key from input dictionary used to generate groups

parent_group

string

parent group for keyed group

prefix

string

A keyed group name will start with this prefix

Default: ""

separator

string

separator used to build the keyed group name

Default: "_"

trailing_separator

boolean

added in ansible-core 2.12

Set this option to False to omit the separator after the host variable when the value is an empty string.

This option is mutually exclusive with default_value.

Choices:

  • false

  • true ← (default)

leading_separator

boolean

added in ansible-core 2.11

Use in conjunction with keyed_groups.

By default, a keyed group that does not have a prefix or a separator provided will have a name that starts with an underscore.

This is because the default prefix is “” and the default separator is “_”.

Set this option to False to omit the leading underscore (or other separator) if no prefix is given.

If the group name is derived from a mapping the separator is still used to concatenate the items.

To not use a separator in the group name at all, set the separator for the keyed group to an empty string instead.

Choices:

  • false

  • true ← (default)

open

boolean

added in community.general 6.5.0

Only scan for open (or possibly open) ports.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

plugin

string / required

token that ensures this is a source file for the ‘nmap’ plugin.

Choices:

  • "nmap"

  • "community.general.nmap"

port

string

added in community.general 6.5.0

Only scan specific port or port range (-p).

For example, you could pass 22 for a single port, 1-65535 for a range of ports, or U:53,137,T:21-25,139,8080,S:9 to check port 53 with UDP, ports 21-25 with TCP, port 9 with SCTP, and ports 137, 139, and 8080 with all.

ports

boolean

Enable/disable scanning ports.

Choices:

  • false

  • true ← (default)

strict

boolean

If yes make invalid entries a fatal error, otherwise skip and continue.

Since it is possible to use facts in the expressions they might not always be available and we ignore those errors by default.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

sudo

boolean

added in community.general 4.8.0

Set to true to execute a sudo nmap plugin scan.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

udp_scan

boolean

added in community.general 6.1.0

Scan via UDP.

Depending on your system you might need sudo=true for this to work.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

use_extra_vars

boolean

added in ansible-core 2.11

Merge extra vars into the available variables for composition (highest precedence).

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

Configuration:

  • INI entry:

    [inventory_plugins]
use_extra_vars = false

  • Environment variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_USE_EXTRA_VARS

Notes

Note

  • At least one of ipv4 or ipv6 is required to be True, both can be True, but they cannot both be False.

  • TODO: add OS fingerprinting

Examples

# inventory.config file in YAML format
plugin: community.general.nmap
strict: false
address: 192.168.0.0/24


# a sudo nmap scan to fully use nmap scan power.
plugin: community.general.nmap
sudo: true
strict: false
address: 192.168.0.0/24

# an nmap scan specifying ports and classifying results to an inventory group
plugin: community.general.nmap
address: 192.168.0.0/24
exclude: 192.168.0.1, web.example.com
port: 22, 443
groups:
  web_servers: "ports | selectattr('port', 'equalto', '443')"

Authors

  • Unknown

Hint

Configuration entries for each entry type have a low to high priority order. For example, a variable that is lower in the list will override a variable that is higher up.