Ansible playbook shell output

Question

I would like to quickly monitor some hosts using commands like ps dstat etc using ansible-playbook  The ansible command itself perfectly does what I want  for instance I d use   ansible -m shell -a  ps -eo pcpu user args   sort -r -k1   head -n5    and it nicely prints all std output for every host like this   localhost   success   rc 0  gt  gt  0 0 root      sbin init 0 0 root      kthreadd  0 0 root      ksoftirqd 0  0 0 root      migration 0   otherhost   success   rc 0  gt  gt  0 0 root      sbin init 0 0 root      kthreadd  0 0 root      ksoftirqd 0  0 0 root      migration 0     However this requires me to keep a bunch of shell scripts around for every task which is not very  ansible  so I put this in a playbook   --- -   hosts  all   gather facts  no   tasks      - shell  ps -eo pcpu user args   sort -r -k1   head -n5   and run it with -vv  but the output baiscally shows the dictionary content and newlines are not printed as such so this results in an unreadable mess like this   changed   localhost    gt    changed   true   cmd    ps -eo pcpu user args   sort -r -k1  head -n5     delta    0 00 00 015337    end    2013-12-13 10 57 25 680708    rc   0   start    2013-12-13 10 57 25 665371    stderr        stdout    47 3 xxx    Xvnc4  24 -desktop xxx 24  xxx  -auth  home xxx  Xauthority -geometry 1920x1200 n         I also tried adding register  var and the a  debug  task to show    var stdout    but the result is of course the same   Is there a way to get nicely formatted output from a command s stdout stderr when run via a playbook  I can think of a number of possible ways  format output using sed  redirect output to file on the host then get that file back and echo it to the screen    but with my limited knowledge of the shell ansible it would take me a day to just try it out

User · Answer

I found using the minimal stdout callback with ansible-playbook gave similar output to using ad-hoc ansible   In your ansible cfg  Note that I m on OS X so modify the callback plugins path to suit your install   stdout callback       minimal callback plugins       Library Frameworks Python framework Versions 2 7 lib python2 7 site-packages ansible plugins callback   So that a ansible-playbook task like yours  --- -   hosts  example   gather facts  no   tasks      - shell  ps -eo pcpu user args   sort -r -k1   head -n5   Gives output like this  like an ad-hoc command would  example   SUCCESS   rc 0  gt  gt   CPU USER     COMMAND  0 2 root     sshd  root pts 3  0 1 root      usr sbin CROND -n  0 0 root      xfs-reclaim vda   0 0 root      xfs mru cache    I m using ansible-playbook 2 2 1 0

User · Answer

The debug module could really use some love  but at the moment the best you can do is use this   - hosts  all   gather facts  no   tasks      - shell  ps -eo pcpu user args   sort -r -k1   head -n5       register  ps      - debug  var ps stdout lines   It gives an output like this   ok   host1    gt         ps stdout lines               CPU USER     COMMAND             1 0 root      usr bin python             0 6 root     sshd  root notty              0 2 root     java             0 0 root     sort -r -k1          ok   host2    gt         ps stdout lines               CPU USER     COMMAND             4 0 root      usr bin python             0 6 root     sshd  root notty              0 1 root     java             0 0 root     sort -r -k1

User · Answer

This is a start may be    - hosts  all   gather facts  no   tasks      - shell  ps -eo pcpu user args   sort -r -k1   head -n5       register  ps      - local action  command echo item       with items  ps stdout lines   NOTE  Docs regarding ps stdout lines are covered here    Register Variables  chapter

User · Answer

Perhaps not relevant if you re looking to do this ONLY using ansible  But it s much easier for me to have a function in my  bash profile and then run  check machine host1 host2  function  check machine         echo  hostname num physical procs cores per procs memory Gen RH Release bios hp power profile bios intel qpi link power management bios hp power regulator bios idle power state bios memory speed       hostlist  1     for h in  echo  hostlist   sed  s    n g        do         echo  h   grep -qE   a-zA-Z                -ne 0    amp  amp  h plabb h         echo -n  h          ssh root  h  grep   physical id   proc cpuinfo   sort -u   wc -l  grep   cpu cores   proc cpuinfo  sort -u   awk   print   4    awk   print   2 1024 1024  exit 0    proc meminfo   usr sbin dmidecode   grep  Product Name   cat  etc redhat-release   etc facter bios facts sh     sed  s Red at Enterprise Linux Server release   g  s      g  s  tProduct Name  ProLiant BL460c   g  s -  g    sed  s Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release   g  s      g  s  tProduct Name  ProLiant BL460c   g  s -  g    tr   n               echo        done     E g      machine info  10 20 1036  hostname num physical procs cores per procs memory Gen RH Release bios hp power profile bios intel qpi link power management bios hp power regulator bios idle power state bios memory speed  plabb10 2 4 47 1629 G6 5 11  Tikanga  Maximum Performance Disabled HP Static High Performance Mode No CStates 1333MHz Maximum  plabb20 2 4 47 1229 G6 6 6  Santiago  Maximum Performance Disabled HP Static High Performance Mode No CStates 1333MHz Maximum  plabb1036 2 12 189 12 Gen8 6 6  Santiago  Custom Disabled HP Static High Performance Mode No CStates 1333MHz Maximum       Needless to say function won t work for you as it is  You need to update it appropriately

User · Answer

Expanding on what leucos said in his answer  you can also print information with Ansible s humble debug module   - hosts  all   gather facts  no   tasks      - shell  ps -eo pcpu user args   sort -r -k1   head -n5       register  ps        Print the shell task s stdout      - debug  msg    ps stdout           Print all contents of the shell task s output      - debug  var ps

User · Answer

If you need a specific exit status  Ansible provides a way to do that via callback plugins    Example  It s a very good option if you need a 100  accurate exit status   If not  you can always use the Debug Module  which is the standard for this cases of use   Cheers

User · Answer

ANSIBLE STDOUT CALLBACK debug ansible-playbook  tmp foo yml -vvv  Tasks with STDOUT will then have a section   STDOUT   What ever was in STDOUT

[shell] Ansible playbook shell output

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