How to detect why Ansible playbook hangs during execution

user_2842038 0
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Some of tasks I wrote start and never end. Ansible does not provide any errors or logs that would explain this, even with -vvvv option. Playbook just hangs and passing hours doesn't change anything.

When I try to run my tasks manually (by entering commands via SSH) everything is fine.

Example task that hangs:

- name: apt upgrade
  shell: apt-get upgrade

Is there any way to see stdout and stderr ? I tried:

- name: apt upgrade
  shell: apt-get upgrade
  register: hello
- debug: msg="{{ hello.stdout }}"
- debug: msg="{{ hello.stderr }}"

but nothing changed.

I do have required permissions and I pass correct sudo password - other tasks that require sudo execute correctly.

ansible provisioning deployment ubuntu
7 Answers

In my case, ansible was "hanging forever" because apt-get was trying to ask me a question! How did I figure this out? I went to the target server and ran ps -aef | grep apt and then did a kill on the appropriate "stuck" apt-get command.

Immediately after I did that, my ansible playbook sprang back to life and reported (with ansible-playbook -vvv option given):

    " ==> Deleted (by you or by a script) since installation.",
    " ==> Package distributor has shipped an updated version.",
    "   What would you like to do about it ?  Your options are:",
    "    Y or I  : install the package maintainer's version",
    "    N or O  : keep your currently-installed version",
    "      D     : show the differences between the versions",
    "      Z     : start a shell to examine the situation",
    " The default action is to keep your current version.",
    "*** buildinfo.txt (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ? "

After reading that helpful diagnostic output, I immediately realized I needed some appropriate dpkg options (see for example, this devops post). In my case, I chose:

apt:
  name: '{{ item }}'
  state: latest
  update_cache: yes
  # Force apt to always update to the newer config files in the package:
  dpkg_options: 'force-overwrite,force-confnew'
loop: '{{ my_packages }}'

Also, don't forget to clean up after your killed ansible session with something like this, or your install will still likely fail:

sudo dpkg --configure -a
Ogre_Psalm33_131400

I was using ansible to install a cluster of OpenDayLight SDN controllers on Ubuntu 20.4 VMs. Gathering facts was reporting a python version warning and hanging. Installing python 3.8 on my 3 VM worker nodes resolved the issue

user_124378180
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