# Inventory Refresh Overview Tower should have an inventory view that is more aligned towards systems management rather than merely maintaining inventory for automation. ## Inventory Source Promotion Starting with Tower 3.2, `InventorySource` will be associated directly with an `Inventory`. ### API Concerns / Deprecation The `group` field for `InventorySource` has been renamed to `deprecated_group` and will be removed from `InventorySource` completely in Tower 3.3. As a result the related field on `Group` , `inventory_source` has been renamed `deprecated_inventory_source` and will also be removed in Tower 3.3. ## Fact Searching and Caching ## Smart Inventory Starting in Tower 3.2, Tower will support the ability to define a _Smart Inventory_. You will define the inventories using the same language we currently support in our _Smart Search_. ### Inventory Changes * The `Inventory` model has a new field called `kind`. The default of this field will be blank for normal inventories and set to `smart` for smart inventories. * `Inventory` model has a new field called `host_filter`. The default of this field will be blank for normal inventories. When `host_filter` is set AND the inventory `kind` is set to `smart` is the combination that makes a _Smart Inventory_. * `Host` model has a new field called `smart_inventories`. This field uses the `SmartInventoryMemberships` lookup table to provide a set of all of the _Smart Inventory_ a host is a part of. The memberships are generated by the `update_host_smart_inventory_memberships` task. This task is called when the view for `/api/v2/hosts/:id/smart_inventories` is materialized. NOTE: This task is only run if the `AWX_REBUILD_SMART_MEMBERSHIP` is set to True. It defaults to False. ### Smart Filter (host_filter) The `SmartFilter` class handles our translation of the smart search string. We store the filter value in the `host_filter` field for an inventory. This value should be expressed the same way we express our existing smart searches. host_filter="search=foo" host_filter="group__search=bar" host_filter="search=baz and group__search=bang" host_filter="name=localhost or group__name=local" Creating a new _Smart Inventory_ for all of our GCE and EC2 groups might look like this: HTTP POST /api/v2/inventories/ { "name": "GCE and EC2 Smart Inventory", "kind": "smart", "host_filter": "group__search=ec2 and group__search=gce" ... } ### More On Searching The `host_filter` you set will search over the entirety of the hosts you have access to in Tower. If you want to restrict your search in anyway, you will want to declare that in your host filter. For example, if you want to restrict the search to only hosts in an inventory named "US-East", you would create a `host_filter` that looked something like this: { "name": "NYC Hosts", "kind": "smart", "host_filter": "inventory__name='US-East' and search='nyc'", ... } In the above example, you are limiting the search to the "US-East" inventory and hosts with a name containing "nyc". ### Acceptance Critera When verifying acceptance we should ensure the following statements are true: * `Inventory` has a new field named `kind` that defaults to empty and can only be set to `smart`. * `Inventory` has a new field named `host_filter` to empty and can only be set to a valid _SmartFilter_ string. * `Inventory` with a `host_filter` set and a `kind` of `smart` will have a `hosts` list reflecting the results of searching `/api/v2/hosts` with the same search that is set in the `host_filter`. ### API Concerns There are no breaking or backwards incompatible changes for this feature. ## Other Changes ### Inventory update all inventory_sources A new endpoint `/api/v2/inventories/:id/update_inventory_sources` has been added. This endpoint functions in the same way that `/api/v2/inventory_source/:id/update` functions for a single `InventorySource` with the exception that it updates all of the inventory sources for the `Inventory`. `HTTP GET /api/v2/inventories/:id/update_inventory_sources` will list all of the inventory sources and if they will be updated when a POST to the same endpoint is made. The result of this request will look like this: { results: [ {"inventory_source": 1, "can_update": True}, {"inventory_source": 2, "can_update": False}, ] } When making a POST to the same endpoint, the response will contain a status as well as the job ID for the update. POST /api/v2/inventories/:id/update_inventory_sources { results: [ {"inventory_update": 20, "inventory_source": 1, "status": "started"}, {"inventory_update": 21, "inventory_source": 2, "status": "Could not start because `can_update` returned False"} ] } ### Background deletion of Inventory ### InventorySource Hosts and Groups read-only