Tjyylli

Ansible 2.1

In the playbook, I started a process:

- name: Start Automation Agent, and enable start on boot

  service: name=mongodb-mms-automation-agent state=started enabled=yes

From play recap, it appears the process has successfully started.

TASK [install : Start automation agent, and enable start on boot] **************

changed: [server1]

However, when log in to remote host and do a ps, the process is not running. Checking on process log it had failed some pre-requisite (intended).

How do I write a task in a playbook to confirm the process has successfully started?

You can check with the failed Jinja2 filter after running your command that checks if the process is running.

Here is an example that uses the output of the command systemctl status apache2 to decide if Apache is running:

- name: Check if Apache is running

  command: systemctl status apache2

  ignore_errors: yes

  changed_when: false

  register: service_apache_status



- name: Report status of Apache

  fail:

    msg: |

      Service apache2 is not running.

      Output of `systemctl status apache2`:

      {{ service_apache_status.stdout }}

      {{ service_apache_status.stderr }}

  when: service_apache_status | failed

If the command of the first task failed, the second task will fail and show why the first task failed.


The return code is stored in service_apache_status.rc.

Example output of a failure:

TASK: [Check if Apache is running] *********************** 

failed: [localhost] => {"changed": false, "cmd": ["systemctl", "status", "apache2"], "delta": "0:00:00.009379", "end": "2016-06-06 15:17:27.827172", "rc": 3, "start": "2016-06-06 15:17:27.817793", "stdout_lines": ["* apache2.service", "   Loaded: not-found (Reason: No such file or directory)", "   Active: inactive (dead)"], "warnings": []}

stdout: * apache2.service

   Loaded: not-found (Reason: No such file or directory)

   Active: inactive (dead)

...ignoring



TASK: [Report status of Apache] ***************************

failed: [localhost] => {"failed": true}

msg: apache2 is not running

systemctl status apache2 output:

* apache2.service

   Loaded: not-found (Reason: No such file or directory)

   Active: inactive (dead)

Here is different (albeit possibly less reliable) way, using pgrep, to check if the process is running:

- name: Check if Apache is running

  shell: pgrep apache2

  ignore_errors: yes

  changed_when: false

  register: service_apache_status



- name: Report status of Apache

  fail:

    msg: |

      Service apache2 is not running.

      Return code from `pgrep`:

      {{ service_apache_status.rc }}

  when: service_apache_status.rc != 0

This is what I do now:

- name: Confirm Automation Agent is running

  command: service mongodb-mms-automation-agent status

  register: agent_status

  failed_when: "'NOT' in agent_status.stdout"

  changed_when: False

failed_when is introduced in 1.4. changed_when: False is used to suppress change status. Read more.