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Frequently Asked Questions

Be sure to check out the Discussions > Help category for the latest answers.

ansible-navigator FAQ

How do I add extra variables and tags to ansible-navigator?

If you want to run a playbook with a given tag, e.g. -t infra, then simply add it as a parameter to the ansible-navigator commandline. For example, ansible-navigator run playbook.yml -t infra.

Like tags, so you can pass extra variables to ansible-navigator and the underlying Ansible command. For example, ansible-navigator run playbook.yml -e @some_config.yml -e some_var=yes.

How do I tell ansible-navigator where to find collections and roles?

By default, cloudera-deploy expects to use the collections, roles, and libraries within the execution environment container, that is, the cldr-runner image. Make sure you do not have ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_PATH or ANSIBLE_ROLES_PATH set or ansible-navigator will pick up these environment variables and pass them to the running container. The underlying ansible application, like ansible-playbook will then pick up these environment variables and attempt to use them if set!

This behavior is great if you want to use host-based collections, e.g. local development, but you need to ensure that you update the ansible-navigator.yml configuration file to mount the host collection and/or role directories into the execution environment container. See Advanced Usage: Execution Modes to learn more about these execution modes.

ansible-navigator hangs when I run my playbook. What is going on?

ansible-navigator does not handle user prompts when running in the curses, text-based UI , so actions in your playbook like:

  • Vault passwords
  • SSH passphrases
  • Debugger statements

will not work out-of-the-box. You can enable ansible-navigator to run with prompts, but doing so will also disable the TUI and instead run its operations using stdout.

Try adding:

ansible-navigator run --enable-prompts ...

to your execution to allow ansible-navigator to receive your prompt input.

How can I view a previous ansible-navigator run to debug an issue?

ansible-navigator can be configured to save execution runs to a directory. You can reload a run by using the replay command:

ansible-navigator replay <playbook execution run file>.json

Then you can use the TUI to review the plays, tasks, and inventory for the previous run!

You can learn more about replays and their configuration in the ansible-navigator documentation.

How can I enable the playbook debugger?

The playbook debugger is enabled in ansible-navigator by setting the debugger and then enabling prompts. For example,

ANSIBLE_ENABLE_TASK_DEBUGGER=True ansible-navigator run --enable-prompts main.yml

How can I reference SSH keys when running in an Execution Environment container?

The ansible-navigator documentation has instructions and guidance for using SSH keys within an execution environment, including how ansible-navigator will volume mount the SSH authentication socket dictated by SSH_AUTH_SOCK and set the same within the container. However, some host services are unable to mount sockets, so the best way to reference a SSH private key is to specify the ansible_ssh_private_key_file variable for a given host inventory. (See the note in the above documentation link.)

For example, you might want to create a group_vars/all.yml or group_vars/<inventory group name>.yml file and specify the ansible_ssh_private_key_file.

In any event, when specifying the ansible_ssh_private_key_file, keep in mind the path to the referenced key is in relation to the location of the key within the execution environment! (Again, see the above documentation link.)

How to I configure SSH to avoid a "Failed to connect to new control master" error?

When running connecting to a host via SSH while running ansible-navigator, in particular when you are working with Terraform inventory managed by the cloud.terraform inventory plugin, you might encounter the following error:

Failed to connect to the host via ssh: Control socket connect(/runner/.ansible/cp/b44b170fff): Connection refused
Failed to connect to new control master

To resolve, be sure to add the following variable to your ansible-navigator.yml configuration file:

ansible-navigator:
  execution-environment:
    environment-variables:
      set:
        ANSIBLE_SSH_CONTROL_PATH: "/dev/shm/cp%%h-%%p-%%r"