How to check if a role was successful

Ansible can be ‘noisy’ and log a lot of information to the terminal when running. To determine if a role was successful or not, check for unreachable or failed tasks from the ‘PLAY RECAP’ at the end of ansible-playbooks execution. The following is an example of a successful recap:

PLAY RECAP *******************************************************************
10.1.11.28: ok=6    changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    
rescued=0    ignored=0

Here it shows that 2 tasks changed something on the system at the IP address 10.1.11.28, while 6 tasks did not need to change anything on the system.

Common errors to check for

Unable to parse X as an inventory source / no hosts matched

When running the command ansible-playbook against a single host or IP specified with the -i argument, there must be a trailing comma. If one is not set at the end of the IP address, Ansible assumes that the parameter provided to -i is the name of a file to read the hosts from. See Ansible’s Documentation about Inventory File

Correct Example:

ansible-playbook -i 10.1.11.3, playbook.yml

Incorrect Example:

ansible-playbook -i 10.1.11.3 playbook.yml

UNREACHABLE! Failed to connect to the host via ssh

Check the IP or hostname you specified in the ansible-playbook command is correct, and check that the VM you are targeting is running and hasn’t crashed. Within the ‘PLAY RECAP’ Ansible will list a task or set of tasks as unreachable if Ansible was unable to resolve the hostname, or connect over ssh to the host.

PLAY RECAP **************************************************************
local: ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=1    failed=0    skipped=0    
rescued=0    ignored=0

Authentication error

Ansible will parse the config.yml file located next to the Playbook for Authentication information. If the specified SSH private key, username, or password is incorrect, then Ansible will mark the host UNREACHABLE and display an error on the first failed task "Gathering Facts". The message will specify more detail about the error.

Examples of failed authentication attempts:

TASK [Gathering Facts] ************************************************************
{"changed": false, "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: 
Received disconnect from 192.168.1.31 port 22:2: Too many authentication failures\r
Disconnected from 192.168.1.31 port 22", "unreachable": true}

PLAY RECAP ***************************************************************************
192.168.1.31: ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=1    failed=0    skipped=0    
rescued=0    ignored=0

TASK [Gathering Facts] ***********************************************************
fatal: [localhost]: UNREACHABLE! => {"changed": false, "msg": "Failed to connect to 
the host via ssh: ansible@localhost: Permission denied (publickey,password).", 
"unreachable": true}

PLAY RECAP ***************************************************************
localhost: ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=1    failed=0    skipped=0    
rescued=0    ignored=0

Be sure to configure the ansible_ssh_private_key_file and ansible_user fields within config.yml correctly.

Additional Help

Increase the verbosity level of ansible-playbook

The verbosity of Ansible logging can be increased by passing multiple -v arguments while invoking the ansible-playbook command. We recommend trying -v to start, and -vvv if more information is required.

When requesting help from c2games, please include command output using -vvv.

Example:

ansible-playbook -i 10.1.11.3, playbook.yml -vvv