Ansible troubleshooting - Destination does not exist
How to reproduce the destination does not exist error in Ansible, troubleshooting, and fix to be able to successfully download a file from an URL in a home directory with your Ansible playbook.


Today we’re going to talk about Ansible troubleshooting, specifically about the destination does not exist error
.
I’m Luca Berton and welcome to today’s episode of Ansible Pilot.
The Best Resources For Ansible
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- Ansible by Examples: 200+ Automation Examples For Linux and Windows System Administrator and DevOps
- Ansible For Windows By Examples: 50+ Automation Examples For Windows System Administrator And DevOps
- Ansible For Linux by Examples: 100+ Automation Examples For Linux System Administrator and DevOps
- Ansible Linux Filesystem By Examples: 40+ Automation Examples on Linux File and Directory Operation for Modern IT Infrastructure
- Ansible For Containers and Kubernetes By Examples: 20+ Automation Examples To Automate Containers, Kubernetes and OpenShift
- Ansible For Security by Examples: 100+ Automation Examples to Automate Security and Verify Compliance for IT Modern Infrastructure
- Ansible Tips and Tricks: 10+ Ansible Examples to Save Time and Automate More Tasks
- Ansible Linux Users & Groups By Examples: 20+ Automation Examples on Linux Users and Groups Operation for Modern IT Infrastructure
- Ansible For PostgreSQL by Examples: 10+ Examples To Automate Your PostgreSQL database
- Ansible For Amazon Web Services AWS By Examples: 10+ Examples To Automate Your AWS Modern Infrastructure
demo
The best way of talking about Ansible troubleshooting is to jump in a live demo to show you practically the destination does not exist error
and how to solve it!
error code
- destinationdoesnotexist_error.yml
---
- name: get_url module demo
hosts: all
become: false
vars:
myurl: "https://releases.ansible.com/ansible/ansible-2.9.25.tar.gz"
mycrc: "sha256:https://releases.ansible.com/ansible/ansible-2.9.25.tar.gz.sha"
mydest: "ansible-2.9.25.tar.gz"
tasks:
- name: download file
ansible.builtin.get_url:
url: "{{ myurl }}"
dest: "{{ mydest }}"
checksum: "{{ mycrc }}"
mode: '0644'
error execution
$ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/demo/inventory troubleshooting/destinationdoesnotexist_error.yml
PLAY [get_url module demo] ******************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] **********************************************************************
ok: [demo.example.com]
TASK [download file] ************************************************************************
fatal: [demo.example.com]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "checksum_dest": null, "checksum_src": "574e24659f555fe370571167d3d44704671f1773", "dest": "ansible-2.9.25.tar.gz", "elapsed": 3, "msg": "Destination does not exist", "src": "/home/devops/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1640555219.326019-1431-267536126421544/tmpmx_ra0hd", "url": "https://releases.ansible.com/ansible/ansible-2.9.25.tar.gz"}
PLAY RECAP **********************************************************************************
demo.example.com : ok=1 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=1 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0
fix code
- destinationdoesnotexist_fix.yml
---
- name: get_url module demo
hosts: all
become: false
vars:
myurl: "https://releases.ansible.com/ansible/ansible-2.9.25.tar.gz"
mycrc: "sha256:https://releases.ansible.com/ansible/ansible-2.9.25.tar.gz.sha"
mydest: "ansible-2.9.25.tar.gz"
tasks:
- name: download file
ansible.builtin.get_url:
url: "{{ myurl }}"
dest: "./{{ mydest }}"
checksum: "{{ mycrc }}"
mode: '0644'
fix execution
$ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/demo/inventory troubleshooting/destinationdoesnotexist_fix.yml
PLAY [get_url module demo] ******************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] **********************************************************************
ok: [demo.example.com]
TASK [download file] ************************************************************************
changed: [demo.example.com]
PLAY RECAP **********************************************************************************
demo.example.com : ok=2 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0
verification
$ ssh [email protected]
[[email protected] ~]$ ls -al
total 13964
drwx------. 4 devops wheel 140 Dec 26 21:47 .
drwxr-xr-x. 5 root root 50 Dec 15 13:00 ..
drwx------. 3 devops wheel 17 Dec 15 13:00 .ansible
-rw-------. 1 devops wheel 322 Dec 26 21:46 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--. 1 devops wheel 18 Jul 26 09:51 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--. 1 devops wheel 141 Jul 26 09:51 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--. 1 devops wheel 376 Jul 26 09:51 .bashrc
drwx------. 2 devops wheel 29 Dec 15 13:00 .ssh
-rw-r--r--. 1 devops wheel 14280306 Dec 26 21:47 ansible-2.9.25.tar.gz
Recap
Now you know better how to troubleshoot the Ansible destination does not exist error
and solve it!
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