Packer: [provisioner/ansible] roles_path is not taken into account

[nWmCZ]

Parameter roles_path is not taken into account with ansible provisioner on azure-arm

• Packer version 1.4.3
• Host platform MacOS 10.14.6 / azure-arm
• Ansible 2.8.3

Gist related content (forgive me, I don't know how to quote it yet)
https://gist.github.com/nWmCZ/70441b91ee64f3cef0fc14b1e8ec09b5

EDIT:
Already found workaround:

"ansible_env_vars": [ ["ANSIBLE_ROLES_PATH=/git/roles"] ]

[FearTheBadger]

This is also present in amazon-ebs

Packer version 1.4.5

[bborysenko]

It looks like roles_path is used only by ansible-galaxy

❯ packer version
Packer v1.5.6

❯ cat packer.json
...
"provisioners": [
    {
      "type": "ansible",
      "only": ["googlecompute"],
      "playbook_file": "../ansible/playbooks/core.yml",
      "roles_path": "../ansible/roles",
      "groups": ["core", "engine"],
      "user": "packer",
      "extra_arguments": ["--become"],
      "keep_inventory_file": true
    },
...


❯ ls -l1 ../ansible/roles
cloudalchemy.node-exporter
os
engine
zabbix-agent

❯ packer build -only googlecompute packer.json
googlecompute: output will be in this color.
==> googlecompute: Checking image does not exist...
==> googlecompute: Creating temporary SSH key for instance...
==> googlecompute: Using image: centos-7-v20200603
==> googlecompute: Creating instance...
    googlecompute: Loading zone: europe-west1-b
    googlecompute: Loading machine type: n1-standard-1
    googlecompute: Requesting instance creation...
    googlecompute: Waiting for creation operation to complete...
    googlecompute: Instance has been created!
==> googlecompute: Waiting for the instance to become running...
    googlecompute: IP: 34.76.178.206
==> googlecompute: Using ssh communicator to connect: 34.76.178.206
==> googlecompute: Waiting for SSH to become available...
==> googlecompute: Connected to SSH!
==> googlecompute: Provisioning with Ansible...
    googlecompute: Setting up proxy adapter for Ansible....
==> googlecompute: Executing Ansible: ansible-playbook -e packer_build_name=googlecompute -e packer_builder_type=googlecompute -e ansible_ssh_private_key_file=/var/folders/sj/t6k0scl12f786k43wjyn5lsm0000gn/T/ansible-key144865815 --ssh-extra-args -o IdentitiesOnly=yes -i /var/folders/sj/t6k0scl12f786k43wjyn5lsm0000gn/T/packer-provisioner-ansible435717770 /Users/bborysenko/src/iac/ansible/playbooks/bi-core.yml --become
    googlecompute: ERROR! the role 'os' was not found in /Users/bborysenko/src/iac/ansible/playbooks/roles:/Users/bborysenko/.ansible/roles:/usr/share/ansible/roles:/etc/ansible/roles:/Users/bborysenko/src/iac/ansible/playbooks
    googlecompute:
    googlecompute: The error appears to be in '/Users/bborysenko/src/iac/ansible/playbooks/bi-core.yml': line 5, column 5, but may
    googlecompute: be elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.
    googlecompute:
    googlecompute: The offending line appears to be:
    googlecompute:
    googlecompute:   roles:
    googlecompute:   - role: os
    googlecompute:     ^ here
==> googlecompute: Provisioning step had errors: Running the cleanup provisioner, if present...
==> googlecompute: Deleting instance...
    googlecompute: Instance has been deleted!
==> googlecompute: Deleting disk...
    googlecompute: Disk has been deleted!

[nick-korsakov]

The same on VirtualBox-ovf. Any workaround?

[zentavr]

I have something like this:

{
      "type": "ansible",
      "ansible_env_vars": [
        "ANSIBLE_ROLES_PATH={{user `ansible_roles_path` }}",
        "ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING=False",
        "ANSIBLE_SSH_ARGS='-o ForwardAgent=yes -o ControlMaster=auto -o ControlPersist=60s -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null'"

      ],
       "extra_arguments": [
         "--extra-vars", "@variables.yml",
         "--extra-vars", "ansible_host={{user `ansible_host`}} ansible_connection={{user `ansible_connection`}}"
      ],
      "user": "root",
      "playbook_file": "./provision.yml"
    }

And run the build with:

packer build \
    -var 'ansible_roles_path=/Users/zentavr/Development/dockerfiles/_ansible-roles' \
    -var 'project_path=/Users/zentavr/Development/dockerfiles/ejbca' \
    packer.json

My packer is not the latest version though.

[nick-korsakov]

@zentavr thank you for the hint!
I've created ansible.cfg in the *.pkr.hcl's file directory and it works:

[defaults]
roles_path = path/to/ansible/roles

[zentavr]

@zentavr thank you for the hint!

I've created ansible.cfg in the *.pkr.hcl's file directory and it works:

[defaults]

roles_path = path/to/ansible/roles

I see. I moved that to the parameters, because the code is shareable between the developers and Jenkins build nodes.

[artis3n]

Question for a maintainer - do we want to override (probably merge) the ANSIBLE_ROLES_PATH if the roles_path parameter is provided, or should people configure their ansible.cfg or set their ansible_env_vars themselves?

If you want to semi-intelligently merge the provided env var with the roles_path/collections_path I can take a crack at that PR.

[SwampDragons]

Good question. I'd merge a PR that adds ANSIBLE_ROLES_PATH if roles path is set, but I would ideally not want to override any user-set instances of ANSIBLE_ROLES_PATH.