Human-readable Ansible diagnostic messages?

[iainhouston]

Issue Type

• Feature Idea

Your Environment

python --version #==> Python 2.7.14
ansible --version #==> ansible 2.4.2.0
vagrant --version #==> Vagrant 2.0.1
VBoxManage --version #==> Virtual Box 5.2.4r119785
composer --version  #==> ... 1.6.2 2018-01-05 15:28:4

Your OS

• macOS (high Sierra)

Summary

Human-readable Ansible diagnostics would make life a lot easier.
Debugging failing Ansible tasks is made much more difficult by unformatted (html strings) diagnostics which take a lot of deciphering.

For example, adding to ansible.cfg the following (according to ansible-human_log) should make life a lot easier.

[defaults]
callback_plugins = path/to/callback_plugins/

[oxyc]

Do you happen to have any before/after examples?

[iainhouston]

Haven't got a suitable "after" to hand right here, but here's what was bugging me "before":

TASK [Run configured post-provision ansible task files.] ***********************
fatal: [local-BAPC]: FAILED! => {"reason": "no action detected in task. This often indicates a misspelled module n
ame, or incorrect module path.\n\nThe error appears to have been in '/Users/iainhouston/bradford-abbas.uk/vm/local
_tasks/local_directories.yml': line 2, column 3, but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax p
roblem.\n\nThe offending line appears to be:\n\n---\n- name: Ensure Dev sql-dump directory is present\n  ^ here\n\
n\nThe error appears to have been in '/Users/iainhouston/bradford-abbas.uk/vm/local_tasks/local_directories.yml':
line 2, column 3, but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.\n\nThe offending line a
ppears to be:\n\n---\n- name: Ensure Dev sql-dump directory is present\n  ^ here\n\nexception type: <class 'ansibl

e.errors.AnsibleParserError'>\nexception: no action detected in task. This often indicates a misspelled module nam
e, or incorrect module path.\n\nThe error appears to have been in '/Users/iainhouston/bradford-abbas.uk/vm/local_t
asks/local_directories.yml': line 2, column 3, but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax pro
blem.\n\nThe offending line appears to be:\n\n---\n- name: Ensure Dev sql-dump directory is present\n  ^ here\n"}
        to retry, use: --limit @/Users/iainhouston/bradford-abbas.uk/vendor/geerlingguy/drupal-vm/provisioning/pla
ybook.retry

[geerlingguy]

Could this just be a documentation thing? e.g. if you want to have easier to read debug output, download x and place it in y, then add line z to Drupal VM's ansible.cfg file... something like that?

[iainhouston]

Yes, a documentation thing, sure that would suffice. Trouble is I've tried all sorts of suggestions for ansible-playbook's ansible.cfg including:

[defaults]
roles_path = ./
stdout_callback = skippy
callback_plugins = /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible/plugins/callback/
...

but none of the plugins seem to have any effect on the readability of something like:

TASK [geerlingguy.firewall : Check if ufw package is installed (on Ubuntu).] ***
fatal: [local-BAPC]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "cmd": "service ufw status", "delta":   "0:00:00.007012", "end": "2018-01-17 22:24:38.367020", "msg": "non-zero return code", "rc": 3,    "start": "2018-01-17 22:24:38.360008", "stderr": "", "stderr_lines": [], "stdout": "* ufw.service -    Uncomplicated firewall\n   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/ufw.service; disabled; vendor preset:    enabled)\n   Active: inactive (dead)", "stdout_lines": ["* ufw.service - Uncomplicated firewall", "      Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/ufw.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)", "   Active:    inactive (dead)"]}   
...ignoring   

where newlines are not interpreted (on MacOS Terminal anyway. And there again GitHub Markdown gives yet another slant!)

[oxyc]

When I was working on #1563 I noticed that the ansible.cfg wasn't picked up by Drupal VM at all. It had to reside next to the Vagrantfile to get picked up (PR solves it).

[iainhouston]

What’s the journey between @oxyc update and me doing composer update geerlingguy/drupal-vm —with-dependencies to try with an ansible.cfg whose contents are picked up? I tried placing it next to my (delegating) Vagrantfile with no joy. My drupal-vm was cloned about three or four weeks ago.

[geerlingguy]

See also: Use Ansible's YAML callback plugin for a better CLI experience—but note that would require Ansible 2.5.0+ and I'm not yet ready to bump from 2.4 to 2.5 as a minimum requirement :)

I like @oxyc's PR, and have one follow-up docs question, but otherwise I'm happy to merge that in so we can get a little better Ansible output by default!

[geerlingguy]

I am closing issues more than 6 months old which are not approved feature requests or definitively reproducible bugs affecting most users of Drupal VM; if you feel like this is still a reproducible issue with Drupal VM or something that should still be worked on, please open a new issue in the Drupal VM issue queue. I am trying to clean up some older issues which were hard or impossible to reproduce and debug.

Thank you!

[geerlingguy]

(But note that I may switch the callback plugin to YAML at some point, as I've been doing that on a number of projects. It just doesn't show debug output properly in all cases, so I've been cautious about switching it on.)