Installation

In the Python environment which you are using:

$ python setup.py install

A wrapper script called simply pinventory will be installed which can be used to invoke the Python package.

Direct usage

To obtain an Ansible inventory of Raspberry Pi computers on the LAN:

$ pinventory --list --pretty
{
    "_meta": {
        "hostvars": {
            "10.0.0.149": {
                "hostname": "lime",
                "ip": "10.0.0.149",
                "mac": "b8:27:eb:a5:93:c5"
            },
            "10.0.0.186": {
                "hostname": "raspberrypi",
                "ip": "10.0.0.186",
                "mac": "b8:27:eb:73:9d:67"
            }
        }
    },
    "raspberries": {
        "hosts": [
            "10.0.0.149",
            "10.0.0.186"
        ]
    }
}

To obtain the host variables for a particular host:

$ pinventory --host 10.0.0.149 --pretty
{
    "hostname": "lime",
    "ip": "10.0.0.149",
    "mac": "b8:27:eb:a5:93:c5"
}

Invocation from Ansible

Pass the pinventory executable using the -i inventory option, and Ansible will execute it as a dynamic inventory. For example, assuming pinventory is available on the PATH, to run an ad hoc Ansible command on all Raspberry Pi devices on the LAN, use:

$ ansible raspberries -i `which pinventory` <command>

Customisation

By default the returned inventory includes all Raspberry Pi computers on the local network. The contents of the inventory and variables associated with each host can be customised by providing pluggable functions at two pkg_resources entry points capable of transforming the default inventory and host variables respectively. Example functions can be found in the pinventory.transforms.hostsvars and pinventory.transforms.inventory sub-modules.