Schedule Playbook with crontab

[Phil F]

Hi,

I am attempting to schedule a playbook to run every night to backup Cisco network device configs using crontab.

The playbook is a simple ios_command task executing show run on the Cisco Devices.

The playbook works fine when I run it manually and I have got to the point where crontab is runs the playbook.

However when crontab runs the playbook the playbook is failing and the only output I can see is this:(from ansible.log)

2017-07-12 17:52:01,981 p=6113 u=root |  ERROR! Extraneous options or arguments

2017-07-12 17:54:02,232 p=6122 u=root |  ERROR! Extraneous options or arguments

2017-07-12 17:56:01,525 p=6131 u=root |  ERROR! Extraneous options or arguments

As you can see this is every 2 minutes and for testing purposes crontab is running the playbook every 2 minutes.

crontab:

*/2 * * * *    /usr/bin/ansible /home/ansibleuser/ansible/playbooks/ansible-playbook device_bak_2.yml

playbook which runs perfectly manually:

---

- hosts: CISCO_SWITCHES_ALL

  connection: local

  vars:

    backup_root: /home/ansibleuser/Configs

  tasks:

    - name: run show running-config on remote devices

      ios_command:

        commands: show running

        timeout: 20

      register: config

    - name: ensure backup folder is created

      file:

        path: "{{ backup_root }}"

        state: directory

      run_once: yes

    - name: ensure device folder is created

      file:

        path: "{{ backup_root }}/{{ inventory_hostname }}"

        state: directory

    - copy:

        content: "{{ config.stdout[0] }}"

        dest: "{{ backup_root }}/{{ inventory_hostname }}/running-config_{{ ansible_date_time.year }}{{ ansible_date_time.month }}{{ ansible_date_time.day }}{{ ansible_date_time.hour }}{{ ansible_date_time.minute }}{{ ansible_date_time.second }}"

Does anyone have an idea how I can generate more debug output than just "ERROR! Extraneous options or arguments" ?

Even better if someone knows how I can fix this !!

Kind regards,

Phil.

[Brian Coca]

bin/ansible is for Adhoc tasks, you want bin/ansible-playbook is for
executing playbooks

this makes no sense:
/usr/bin/ansible /home/ansibleuser/ansible/playbooks/ansible-playbook
device_bak_2.yml

I think you want:
/usr/bin/ansible-playbook /home/ansibleuser/ansible/playbooks/device_bak_2.yml


--
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Brian Coca

[mail.ph...@gmail.com]

[mail.ph...@gmail.com]

Thank you so much Brian, it works perfectly.

On Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at 6:08:25 PM UTC+2, Brian Coca wrote:

[Day Man]

I am  newbie at this, i know how to setup ansible playbooks and run them but i dont know how to schedule a task like backing up cisco configs like you are trying to do here. I dont know  Crontab, how do i set it up and also does it use scripts as well? Please provide details. thank you!

[Brian Coca]

ansible-playbook is a 'unix command line utility' you can schedule it
in cron as you would do any other, just pass it the options it needs:

0 4 * * * /usr/bin/ansible-playbook /path/to/mybackupplay.yml ....


Also, you can make your play an 'executable script' by setting the x
permission bits on the playbook file and having ansible-playbook in
the shebang:

#!/usr/bin/ansible-playbook

- hosts: localhost
....


--
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Brian Coca

[Dayo Ajibola]

Brian, 

  Please pardon my question it may sound stupid but i really want to learn this but dont have a grasp of this yet as i am very new to linux,

 where do i place this command " 0 4 * * * /usr/bin/ansible-playbook /path/to/mybackupplay.yml .... " is it going to be a file or i run it on the command line in ubuntu. maybe an example would make this a little more clear to me. maybe a simple yaml script and a cron job to run the yaml script on a schedule. if this is not too much to ask i will appreciate it a lot. thanks 

--
----------
Brian Coca

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[Brian Coca]

That was a 'cron tab entry' .. not really an ansible thing, but a cron
one. Before attempting such a task, you should get familiar with cron.





--
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Brian Coca

[Dayo Ajibola]

you are right, Thanks

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Brian Coca

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[andres pinina]

crontab -e

On Monday, September 25, 2017 at 9:40:49 AM UTC-4, Dayo Ajibola wrote:

Brian, 

  Please pardon my question it may sound stupid but i really want to learn this but dont have a grasp of this yet as i am very new to linux,

 where do i place this command " 0 4 * * * /usr/bin/ansible-playbook /path/to/mybackupplay.yml .... " is it going to be a file or i run it on the command line in ubuntu. maybe an example would make this a little more clear to me. maybe a simple yaml script and a cron job to run the yaml script on a schedule. if this is not too much to ask i will appreciate it a lot. thanks 

On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 7:31 AM, Brian Coca <bc...@redhat.com> wrote:

ansible-playbook is a 'unix command line utility' you can schedule it
in cron as you would do any other, just pass it the options it needs:

0 4 * * * /usr/bin/ansible-playbook /path/to/mybackupplay.yml ....


Also, you can make your play an 'executable script' by setting the x
permission bits on the playbook file and having ansible-playbook in
the shebang:

#!/usr/bin/ansible-playbook

- hosts: localhost
  ....

--
----------
Brian Coca

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