Error: "ImportError: No module named grp" when running playbook against windows

[Sam Brelsfoard]

I've seen a couple of other folks have this issue, but I've not found any answers/solutions. 

I have a playbook that runs fine from an ansible server (CentOS) to a Mac OSX node, however, when I run the same playbook against a Windows node I get an ImportError. Any thoughts?

example:

ansible-playbook playbooks/getserverdb.yml -vvv
Using /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg as config file
PLAYBOOK: getserverdb.yml ******************************************************
1 plays in playbooks/getserverdb.yml
PLAY [samtestwin] **************************************************************
TASK [get server.db from devopscoms] *******************************************
task path: /etc/ansible/playbooks/getserverdb.yml:5
<sbrelsfoard-pc> ESTABLISH SSH CONNECTION FOR USER: izodev
<sbrelsfoard-pc> SSH: EXEC sshpass -d12 ssh -C -q -o ControlMaster=no -o User=izodev -o ConnectTimeout=10 sbrelsfoard-pc '/bin/sh -c '"'"'LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8 C:/Python27/python.exe && sleep 0'"'"''
An exception occurred during task execution. The full traceback is:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\cygwin64\home\izodev\ansible_qajniv\ansible_module_command.py", line 247, in <module>
    from ansible.module_utils.basic import *
  File "c:\cygwin64\home\izodev\ansible_qajniv\ansible_modlib.zip\ansible\module_utils\basic.py", line 52, in <module>
ImportError: No module named grp
fatal: [sbrelsfoard-pc]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "failed": true, "invocation": {"module_name": "command"}, "module_stderr": "Traceback (most recent call last):\r\r\n  File \"c:\\cygwin64\\home\\izodev\\ansible_qajniv\\ansible_module_command.py\", line 247, in <module>\r\r\n    from ansible.module_utils.basic import *\r\r\n  File \"c:\\cygwin64\\home\\izodev\\ansible_qajniv\\ansible_modlib.zip\\ansible\\module_utils\\basic.py\", line 52, in <module>\r\r\nImportError: No module named grp\r\r\n", "module_stdout": "", "msg": "MODULE FAILURE", "parsed": false}
NO MORE HOSTS LEFT *************************************************************
to retry, use: --limit @playbooks/getserverdb.retry
PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
sbrelsfoard-pc             : ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=1

[Matt Davis]

Running python modules on Windows isn't supported or tested (and in most cases just plain won't work)- would strongly suggest you find a win_ equivalent to whatever you're trying to do...

[Sam Brelsfoard]

All I'm trying to do is run a shell command though. Am I approaching this wrong?

Here's my playbook:

---

- hosts: samtestwin

  gather_facts: false

  tasks:

    - name: get server.db from devopscoms

      shell: mv devopscoms/server.db ~/server.db

[Matt Davis]

Not sure why you're using ssh/Python to talk to Windows- you *might* be able to get it to work, but the native Windows management transport that Ansible supports is Powershell over WinRM. 

"shell" is still a module, so it requires that Ansible's basic.py module API and the shell module code itself are functional on the target machine (which is not tested, and clearly has issues). 

If you really want to use SSH to just run commands on Windows/cygwin, just do raw: (whatever command)- that won't subject you to any Python requirements on the Windows side. But if you're really going to use Ansible the way it was intended, light up WinRM and use the native Windows transport and modules that actually get tested.

[Sam Brelsfoard]

Excellent. Thanks for the thorough, helpful answer, Matt!

-Sam