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How to detect what interface has private IP in Ansible

Submitted by: @import:stackexchange-devops·Mar 10, 2026·

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whatprivateinterfacehashowansibledetect

Problem

I plan to reconfigure iptables on our servers (mostly CentOS 7, some CentOS 6) with different network configurations, some on 1Gbit interface, some on 10Gbit, some with VLANs and some with configured LACP.

I want to use Ansible, but couldn't find how to detect what inteface has private address. Private address we could get from inventory as ansible_ssh_host.

Is there any Ansible module that could help? Or I should write shell/Python script?

I checked all solutions on StackOverflow and ServerFault but haven't found anything.

Solution

Peter's module not working in CentOS and I write my own module:

#!/usr/bin/python
# encoding: utf-8

import subprocess
from ansible.module_utils.basic import *
from netaddr import IPNetwork

def get_priv_interface_info_for_ip(ip):
    network_config = subprocess.Popen(["/usr/sbin/ip", "-o", "addr", "show"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
    result = network_config.stdout.read()
    interface = ""
    network = ''
    ip_addr = ip
    for str in result.split("\n"):
        if 'inet ' in str:
            if ip in str:
                interface = str[3:str.find(" ", 3)]
                network = IPNetwork(str[str.find("net", 3) + 4:str.find("/", 3) + 3]).cidr

    return interface, ip_addr, network

def get_pub_interface_info_for_ip(ip):
    network_config = subprocess.Popen(["/usr/sbin/ip", "-o", "addr", "show"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
    result = network_config.stdout.read()
    interface = ''
    network = ''
    ip_addr = ''
    for str in result.split("\n"):
        if 'inet ' in str:
            if ip not in str and '127.0.0.1' not in str:
                print str
                interface = str[3:str.find(" ", 3)]
                network = IPNetwork(str[str.find("net", 3) + 4:str.find("/", 3) + 3]).cidr
                ip_addr = str[str.find("net", 3) + 4:str.find("/", 3)]

    return interface, ip_addr, network

def main(argv=None):
    if argv is None:
        argv = sys.argv

    fields = {"ip": {"required": True, "type": "str"}}
    module = AnsibleModule(argument_spec=fields)
    my_ip = module.params['ip']
    ifname_priv, ip_priv, network_priv = get_priv_interface_info_for_ip(my_ip)
    ifname_pub, ip_pub, network_pub = get_pub_interface_info_for_ip(my_ip)

    module.exit_json(changed=True, ifname_priv=ifname_priv, ip_priv=my_ip, network_priv=str(network_priv), ifname_pub=ifname_pub, ip_pub=ip_pub, network_pub=str(network_pub))

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

It works for servers with two network interfaces and provide information about public and private network interfaces.

Actual version of this module could be found in my GitHub.

Code Snippets

#!/usr/bin/python
# encoding: utf-8

import subprocess
from ansible.module_utils.basic import *
from netaddr import IPNetwork

def get_priv_interface_info_for_ip(ip):
    network_config = subprocess.Popen(["/usr/sbin/ip", "-o", "addr", "show"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
    result = network_config.stdout.read()
    interface = ""
    network = ''
    ip_addr = ip
    for str in result.split("\n"):
        if 'inet ' in str:
            if ip in str:
                interface = str[3:str.find(" ", 3)]
                network = IPNetwork(str[str.find("net", 3) + 4:str.find("/", 3) + 3]).cidr

    return interface, ip_addr, network

def get_pub_interface_info_for_ip(ip):
    network_config = subprocess.Popen(["/usr/sbin/ip", "-o", "addr", "show"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
    result = network_config.stdout.read()
    interface = ''
    network = ''
    ip_addr = ''
    for str in result.split("\n"):
        if 'inet ' in str:
            if ip not in str and '127.0.0.1' not in str:
                print str
                interface = str[3:str.find(" ", 3)]
                network = IPNetwork(str[str.find("net", 3) + 4:str.find("/", 3) + 3]).cidr
                ip_addr = str[str.find("net", 3) + 4:str.find("/", 3)]

    return interface, ip_addr, network

def main(argv=None):
    if argv is None:
        argv = sys.argv

    fields = {"ip": {"required": True, "type": "str"}}
    module = AnsibleModule(argument_spec=fields)
    my_ip = module.params['ip']
    ifname_priv, ip_priv, network_priv = get_priv_interface_info_for_ip(my_ip)
    ifname_pub, ip_pub, network_pub = get_pub_interface_info_for_ip(my_ip)


    module.exit_json(changed=True, ifname_priv=ifname_priv, ip_priv=my_ip, network_priv=str(network_priv), ifname_pub=ifname_pub, ip_pub=ip_pub, network_pub=str(network_pub))


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Context

StackExchange DevOps Q#1313, answer score: 4

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