Ansible 2.7 Porting Guide

Command Line in Ansible 😃

The second topic of the "Ansible 2.7 Porting Guide" series is Command Line in Ansible. This will help you to learn how to use a Command line. The Ansible Command system uses to run commands on a remote node.

The Command module is mostly used to run simple Linux commands on a remote node or server. A host group member or a standalone server is listed in the host group.

This Ansible command module can be used to run a few basic shell commands on a remote server.

Ansible will combine the given tags if you use the command line option --tags or --skip-tags multiple times. When using earlier versions of Ansible, you could maintain only the most recent --tags by setting merge_multiple_cli_tags to False. For backward compatibility, this config option was present. 

In version 2.3, the overwriting behavior was considered obsolete, and version 2.4 modified the default behavior. Multiple "--tags" are now always merged; Ansible-2.7 removes the config option.

Python Compatibility 🐍

Any machine having Python 2 (version 2.7) or Python 3 (version 3.5 and higher) installed can run Ansible. This includes any BSD, Red Hat, Debian, CentOS, macOS, etc. The control node doesn't support Windows.

Ansible has dropped compatibility with Python 2.6. The ability to control a server that has Python-2.6 using /usr/bin/ansible-pull is one thing that is impacted by this. "ansible-pull" is a controller script, not a module. Hence it needs an updated Python version to run on the managed host.

Also see, How to Check Python Version in CMD

Deprecated 😮

In this section of the "Ansible 2.7 Porting Guide" series, we will discuss some Deprecated modules in Ansible.

Expedited Deprecation

The __file__ variable is deprecated in Ansible 2.7 and will also be removed in Ansible 2.8. In the upcoming modules, Ansible 2.8 will read the file from a zip file rather than creating a temporary file for AnsibleModule. This shift should speed up module performance, but it also means that, as of Ansible 2.8, referencing __file__ in AnsibleModule will never succeed.

Finding a directory to write a temporary file is the most common use of the function __file__. Instead, you can use the tmpdir attribute on an AnsibleModule instance with Ansible 2.5 and above, as shown in the code from the apt module:

-    tempdir = os.path.dirname(__file__)
-    package = os.path.join(tempdir, to_native(deb.rsplit('/', 1)[1]))
+    package = os.path.join(module.tmpdir, to_native(deb.rsplit('/', 1)[1]))

Using a loop on a package module via squash_actions

The use of squash_action is now deprecated. Users can use other methods to invoke the package module, like the module's name, pkg, or package parameter.

Check out the below example:

OLD The following task would only use the "yum" module once in Ansible 2.6 (and older) to install many packages.

- name: Install packages
  yum:
    name: "{{ item }}"
    state: present
  with_items: "{{ packages }}"

The syntax is changed in the NEW version of Ansible 2.7.

- name: Install packages
  yum:
    name: "{{ packages }}"
    state: present

Modules 🦾

There was a bug in the older Ansible versions, and due to this, the DEFAULT_SYSLOG_FACILITY config option was not affecting the system using journald with the system Python bindings installed. 

This flaw is fixed in Ansible 2.7, which routes all Ansible log messages by the value set for DEFAULT_SYSLOG_FACILITY. On systems that use journald, the location of remote logs may vary if DEFAULT_SYSLOG_FACILITY is specified.

Deprecation Notice 📄

Follow the table below to learn about the deprecated modules.

Noteworthy Module Changes

💥 Since Ansible 2.5, the deprecated option use_basic_parsing has been removed from the win uri_module because it was ineffective.

💥 You should no longer use the interface_name module option for na_ontap_net_vlan in your playbooks.

💥 Use mount_paths[0] in place of mount_path, which the win_disk_image module has deprecated. In Ansible 2.11, this will be removed.

💥 Ansible (adhoc) and ansible-console now natively support the use of include role and include tasks:

#> ansible -m include_role -a 'name=myrole' all

Plugins 🔌

⚡ If the controller does not support the specified hash algorithm, the hash password filter now throws an exception. As the filter returned None if the algorithm was unknown, this improved the filter's safety.

⚡ The user module took a password of None as a request to not set a password. If this causes errors in your Playbook, you should modify this filter's hashing algorithm.

Frequently Asked Questions 🤔

Is Ansible compatible with Python 3?

Python 3 will be widely read by Ansible and used on many platforms that support it. Set the ansible python interpreter inventory variable at a group or host level to the location of a Python 3 interpreter. For instance: /usr/bin/python3, to directly configure a Python 3 interpreter.

What is CMD in Ansible?

To run any commands or scripts on the remote target machine, use the Ansible command module. Simple Linux commands can be run on a remote node or server. It is a member of the host group or a solo server mentioned in the host group using the command module.

What are Adhoc commands?

Ad hoc commands can be run separately to carry out short tasks. It is not required to run these commands later. You might need to restart all of your company's servers, for instance. You will run the Adhoc commands for this from '/usr/bin/ansible.'

Conclusion🎉

We have discussed the topic of the Ansible 2.7 Porting Guide. In detail, we have seen topics like Command Line, Python Compatibility, and many more.

We hope this blog has helped you enhance your knowledge of the "Ansible 2.7 Porting Guide." If you want to learn more, check out our articles Ansible - Variables, Ansible - Doc, Ansible - Playbooks, and many more on our platform Coding Ninjas Studio.

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