YUM module Install loop too clever

[Arthur Francis]

Does anybody know if it is possible to make the yum module a little bit dumber and stop it from merging packages in one request? I am trying to install

open-vm-tools

and

open-vm-tools-deploypkg

on a centos vm, playbook snippet below.

    - name: Install Standard Packages
      yum: state=present name={{ item }}
      with_items:
        - perl
        - wget
        - net-tools
        - open-vm-tools
        - open-vm-tools-deploypkg

This should in theory work, however the open-vm-tools-deploypkg doesn't install until open-vm-tools is on the system. I have reviewed the stdout and it places them into one yum install request and in the correct order. but still complains about the pre-requisite. If I seperate the open-vm-tools into another task then it works fine. I know its a minor thing but I would like to cut down the number of tasks as much as possible and was wondering if there is anything that can be done to stop it merging the request.

Thanks in advance.

A

[Brian Coca]

in 2.0 you can set ANSIBLE_SQUASH_ACTIONS env var or squash_actions in
ansible.cfg to not include the yum module (default is "apt, dnf,
package, pkgng, yum, zypper"). Just note that now you'll be running 1
task per item vs all items in 1 shot and will be much slower.




--
Brian Coca

[Josh Smift]

If you know that you have one particular page that needs to go first, and
you know what it is, you could just create a second task (to run first) to
install that package, and then a second task to install all the rest, right?

-Josh (j...@care.com)







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[Arthur Francis]

Thanks Josh, Thats how I overcame the problem, but I was wondering if there was another way in the interests of compactness and efficiency.

Thanks

Arthur

[Toshio Kuratomi]

You maybe able to combine this with real lists to keep efficiency
(Note: I haven't tested this):

- name: Install Standard Packages
yum: state=present name={{ item }}
with_items:

- [ 'perl', 'wget', 'net-tools', 'open-vm-tools' ]
- [ 'open-vm-tools-deploypkg']

ANSIBLE_SQUASH_ACTIONS='apt' ansible-playbook test.yml


Also note, this probably means that there's a bug in the packaging of
open-vm-tools-deploypkg. Might want to report that to the packagers.
If I had to guess without actually looking at the package,
open-vm-tools-deploypkg probably uses some program from open-vm-tools
in its %post or %pre install scriptlets but doesn't specify that as a
proper Requires. As an example, if open-vm-tools-deploypkg ran
something in %post that came from open-vm-tools then the Requires in
open-vm-tools-deploypkg would have to look like Requires(post):
open-vm-tools

-Toshio

[Arthur Francis]

Thats a great idea, thanks!! I will give it a try