override-hosts is gone since we can't load inventory for hosts (so it's not an whitelist), but we can

still support hosts outside of inventory if you pass in an array of hosts.  Ports are supported,
but not much other info.

lib/ansible/inventory.py

@@ -37,9 +37,8 @@ class Inventory(object):
 
     def __init__(self, host_list=C.DEFAULT_HOST_LIST):
 
-        # the host file file or script path
+        # the host file file, or script path, or list of hosts
-        if type(host_list) not in [ str, unicode ]:
+        # if a list, inventory data will NOT be loaded
-            raise Exception("host list must be a path")
         self.host_list = host_list
 
         # the inventory object holds a list of groups
@@ -51,7 +50,16 @@ class Inventory(object):
         # whether the inventory file is a script
         self._is_script = False
 
-        if os.access(host_list, os.X_OK):
+        if type(host_list) == list:
+            all = Group('all')
+            self.groups = [ all ]
+            for x in host_list:
+                if x.find(":") != -1:
+                    tokens = x.split(":",1)
+                    all.add_host(Host(tokens[0], tokens[1]))
+                else:
+                    all.add_host(Host(x))
+        elif os.access(host_list, os.X_OK):
             self._is_script = True
             self.parser = InventoryScript(filename=host_list)
             self.groups = self.parser.groups.values()