using copy module, with_items and a vault

[Tom Ekberg]

I've been having trouble with the copy module, using with_items and a vault. I pulled the devel version of ansible so the version should be 1.7.2 + changes added since then.

I put the whole thing in a public bitbucket repository. You can retrieve it with this:

  git clone g...@bitbucket.org:tekberg/ansible-foo.git

I distilled the problem down to this small set of files. The larger case has more things (keys, certs, CSR) in the vault. I use with_items to iterate through them and copy the data to where the keys, certs, CSR belong in Unbuntu.

The instructions on how to run it are included in foo.yml - your host may vary.

The main part is using the copy module:

  tasks:
  - name: install private key, if one exists
    copy:
      dest: "{{ item[1] }}"
      content: "{{ item[0] }}"
    when: item[1]
    with_items:
      - ("{{PRIVATE_KEY}}", "{{PRIVATE_KEY_FILE}}")

My larger case has more in with_items. The things in caps are in the vault. I had to do the "{{PRIVATE_KEY}}" because without the punctuation item[0] was 'PRIVATE_KEY'. Here is a snippet of the ansible output:

failed: [apps2] => (item=(PRIVATE_KEY, PRIVATE_KEY_FILE)) => {"failed": true, "item": "(PRIVATE_KEY, PRIVATE_KEY_FILE)", "md5sum": "84c40473414caf2ed4a7b1283e48bbf4"}

With the extra "{{...}}" syntax it still fails, but item looks better:

failed: [apps2] => (item=("dfihahf
adkfhalkdfjhalkdghalghjalkjd
49147174*&^(^&((&
", "/etc/ssl/private/foo.key")) => {"failed": true, "item": "(\"dfihahf\nadkfhalkdfjhalkdghalghjalkjd\n49147174*&^(^&((&\n\", \"/etc/ssl/private/foo.key\")", "md5sum": "84c40473414caf2ed4a7b1283e48bbf4"}

You can see item[0] is a 3 line value and item[1] is the a file name.

The error I get is:

  msg: Destination directory  does not exist

I hacked the ansible source to display more for this error and this is the result:

  msg: TWE Destination directory  does not exist
  dest=", len(dest)=1

So it is trying to deal with a file name consisting of a single double quote.

I have tried everything I could think of but nothing works. Do you have an idea on what I am doing wrong?

[Matt Martz]

I believe the problem is that you are trying to use a tuple in your YAML file, and YAML doesn't support it.

You with_items should probably be:

with_items:
      - [["{{PRIVATE_KEY}}", "{{PRIVATE_KEY_FILE}}"]]

Due to how ansible collapses lists of lists in with_items, you have to nest your list deeper.

Otherwise you could use a hash instead like (this is my preference):

with_items:
      - {key: "{{PRIVATE_KEY}}", file: "{{PRIVATE_KEY_FILE}}"}
Then reference item.key and item.file instead of list indexes.

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Matt Martz
@sivel
sivel.net

[Tom Ekberg]

Matt,

Thanks for your help! Coming from a Python world I made the incorrect assumption that YAML supported tuples. Both of your suggestions worked fine. I like the hash better too because it is easier to read.

Tom