ANSIBLE: 'ansible_lsb' variable is undefined for CentOS

[v1v]

'ansible_lsb' is undefined

What about using a default value? http://docs.ansible.com/playbooks_variables.html#forcing-variables-to-be-defined

[WanderingZombie]

yum install redhat-lsb-core will make lsb_release -a available, and so ansible will then be able to set ansible_lsb.

[holms]

@WanderingZombie came here because of same error, installing redhat-lsb-core doesn't solve my issue.

[geerlingguy]

Note that you have to make sure redhat-lsb-core is installed prior to running an Ansible playbook that uses the ansible_lsb variable. This may seem obvious, but I was still seeing failures until I made sure my build process installed redhat-lsb-core prior to Ansible interaction.

[holms]

This issue can be closed I think :) That's some undocumented stuff. Would be nice to add this to ansible docs itself.

[einarc]

@holms It is documented, I don't now if it was nine days ago but it is today:
http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_conditionals.html

Look for this:
ansible_lsb.major_release|int

And read the note below.

[holms]

That note in there definitely haven't been there before. Been pulling my hairs and wtf'ing what's going on, when in freenode someone told me about this package. Thanks

[einarc]

@holms Glad to hear you're pulling hairs anymore!!! Cheers!

[einarc]

@holms Guess what:
If i run this:

- name: Get lsb_release
  yum: name=redhat-lsb-core state=present

- name: List Distro version
  debug: var="{{ansible_lsb.release|int}}"

I still get this:
fatal: [172.16.6.80]: FAILED! => {"failed": true, "msg": "'ansible_lsb' is undefined"}

If I log into the node there is the binary:

[ec2-user@ip-172-16-6-80 ~]$ lsb_release -a

LSB Version:    :core-4.1-amd64:core-4.1-noarch
Distributor ID: RedHatEnterpriseServer
Description:    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.2 (Maipo)
Release:    7.2
Codename:   Maipo

There goes the hair pulling, ha!

[holms]

@einarc well like they said above, this package should be installed, before you run playbook :) That means it should be in core image of whatever cloud provider you're using, and that's actually bad.. I wonder if aws/do/gcloud has in centos core image. Maybe it's possible just to regather facts with second playbook in a row, in one file.. haven't tried yet.

[einarc]

@holms I couldn't agree more, the core image of this RHEL7 x64 HVM AWS image is missing so many things that I have to compensate for that is taking longer than expected to do a good wordpress install. On the other hand, they offer Bitnami, but that's not what the team wants here.
Regardless, lsb_release is now installed and ansible still doesn't detect it, so there's definitively an issue that needs looking into.

[einarc]

@holms Actually installing lsb_release does handle the issue. The problem is in the usage of this:

"{{ansible_lsb.release|int}}"

It is NOT the same as this:

ansible_lsb.release|int

The first one is a local user defined variable, the second one is an ansible environment one. Therefore it does not get defined.

[charlesnagy]

Facts are collected at the beginning of the playbook. If you install redhat-lsb-core in the very playbook than you need to reread the ansible_lsb fact.

This is fatal:

    - yum: name=redhat-lsb-core state=present

    - debug: msg={{ ansible_lsb }}

This works:

    - yum: name=redhat-lsb-core state=present

    - name: Reread ansible_lsb facts
      setup: filter=ansible_lsb*

    - debug: msg={{ ansible_lsb }}