Ansible target not logging to syslog

[Ed S]

Hello,

  I'm running ansible 2.1.0.0 and when running a playbook against a target system(machine B), there are no messages logged to syslog on the target machine(machine b) during the run.  Are there settings necessary to get the modules and options logged to syslog on the target system(machine b)?

If I add log_path=/tmp/ansible.log I get a list of modules and options logged to that file on the manager system(machine A), but still nothing on the target machine (machine b).

Thanks,

Ed

My current setup looks like this:

Machine A - Manager system.  OS is debian with Ansible 2.1 installed from packages.  This is where I'm running Ansible

Machine B - Target system.  OS is RedHat 7.  

Ansible.cfg

$ cat ansible.cfg 

[defaults]

roles_path=roles/internal:roles/external

vault_password_file=vpass

nocows=1

ask_sudo_pass=True

ansible_managed = Ansible managed: {file}

Inventory file

$ cat inventory/test 

[test]

machine-b

Test Playbook

$ cat plays/test.yml 

---

- name: Test

  hosts: all

  tasks:

    - name: touch file

      file:

        state: touch

        path: /tmp/test_file

Ansible Run

$ ansible-playbook -i inventory/test plays/test.yml 

SUDO password: 

PLAY [Test] ********************************************************************

TASK [setup] *******************************************************************

ok: [machine-b]

TASK [touch file] **************************************************************

changed: [machine-b]

PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************

machine-b                  : ok=2    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0   

Machine B Rsyslog has the following rule added

*.* /var/log/everything

Machine B has the following journald settings

[Journal]

ForwardToSyslog=yes

MaxLevelSyslog=debug

[Ed S]

So the change that caused the module and options to stop being logged turns out to be the addition of a verbosity check.

https://github.com/ansible/ansible/commit/a56c0bc27b07356c3639c0ac39805d4e5dd91171?diff=unified

Anyone know why this change was made?  The commit message doesn't really make sense to me.  

Or if there's a way to now set the verbosity to 3 via the config file? 

Or a way to set the verbosity to 3 and not show the full ssh commands on the manager system?

I ask because we've got a requirement that any automated configuration management system do at least basic logging on the target system so that changes can be referenced locally.

Thanks,

Ed

[Danny Kimsey]

We also noticed this change in behavior, we are accustomed to seeing ansible logs in the target's syslog. Is this a regression in v2.1.0.0?

[mw]

yup, -vvv would force logging on target:

  -v, --verbose         verbose mode (-vvv for more, -vvvv to enable connection debugging)

[Brian Coca]

The -v option ONLY affects the output you see on the controller. You can set debug in ansible.cfg or ANSIBLE_DEBUG=1 in your environment before running ansible to force some logging on the module side. This mostly affects any commands you shell out for, be mindful that not all modules shell out nor does this account for every action in those that do.

----------

Brian Coca

[Andy Freeland]

According to the docs (http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/intro_configuration.html#log-path), if `log_path` is not set, Ansible will "record module arguments called to the syslog of managed machines". Shouldn't that still be happening?