Ansible troubleshooting - urlopen error

How to reproduce the urlopen error in Ansible, troubleshooting, and fix to be able to successfully open an URL in your playbook.

December 11, 2021

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#ansible #troubleshooting #url #linux #download #error #fatal

Today we’re going to talk about Ansible troubleshooting, specifically about urlopen error. I’m Luca Berton and welcome to today’s episode of Ansible Pilot.

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demo

The best way of talking about Ansible troubleshooting is to jump in a live demo to show you practically the urlopen error and how to solve it!

error code

urlopen_error.yml

---
- name: uri module demo
  hosts: all
  become: false
  vars:
    server: "https://reqres.it"
    endpoint: "/api/users?page=2"
  tasks:
    - name: list users
      ansible.builtin.uri:
        url: "{{ server }}{{ endpoint }}"
        method: GET
        status_code: 200
        timeout: 30
      register: result

    - name: debug
      ansible.builtin.debug:
        var: result.json.data

error execution

$ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/demo/inventory troubleshooting/urlopen_error.yml
PLAY [uri module demo] *********************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] *********************************************************
ok: [demo.example.com]
TASK [list users] **************************************************************
fatal: [demo.example.com]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "elapsed": 15, "msg": "Status code was -1 and not [200]: Request failed: <urlopen error [Errno -2] Name or service not known>", "redirected": false, "status": -1, "url": "https://reqres.it/api/users?page=2"}
PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
demo.example.com           : ok=1    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=1    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

fix code

urlopen_fix.yml

---
- name: uri module demo
  hosts: all
  become: false
  vars:
    server: "https://reqres.in"
    endpoint: "/api/users?page=2"
  tasks:
    - name: list users
      ansible.builtin.uri:
        url: "{{ server }}{{ endpoint }}"
        method: GET
        status_code: 200
        timeout: 30
      register: result

    - name: debug
      ansible.builtin.debug:
        var: result.json.data

fix execution

$ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/demo/inventory troubleshooting/urlopen_fix.yml
PLAY [uri module demo] ****************************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] ****************************************************************************
ok: [demo.example.com]
TASK [list users] *********************************************************************************
ok: [demo.example.com]
TASK [debug] **************************************************************************************
ok: [demo.example.com] => {
    "result.json.data": [
        {
            "avatar": "https://reqres.in/img/faces/7-image.jpg",
            "email": "[email protected]",
            "first_name": "Michael",
            "id": 7,
            "last_name": "Lawson"
        },
        {
            "avatar": "https://reqres.in/img/faces/8-image.jpg",
            "email": "[email protected]",
            "first_name": "Lindsay",
            "id": 8,
            "last_name": "Ferguson"
        },
        {
            "avatar": "https://reqres.in/img/faces/9-image.jpg",
            "email": "[email protected]",
            "first_name": "Tobias",
            "id": 9,
            "last_name": "Funke"
        },
        {
            "avatar": "https://reqres.in/img/faces/10-image.jpg",
            "email": "[email protected]",
            "first_name": "Byron",
            "id": 10,
            "last_name": "Fields"
        },
        {
            "avatar": "https://reqres.in/img/faces/11-image.jpg",
            "email": "[email protected]",
            "first_name": "George",
            "id": 11,
            "last_name": "Edwards"
        },
        {
            "avatar": "https://reqres.in/img/faces/12-image.jpg",
            "email": "[email protected]",
            "first_name": "Rachel",
            "id": 12,
            "last_name": "Howell"
        }
    ]
}
PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************************
demo.example.com           : ok=3    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

code with ❤️ in GitHub

Recap

Now you know better how to troubleshoot the Ansible urlopen error and solve it! Subscribe to the YouTube channel, Medium, Website, Twitter, and Substack to not miss the next episode of the Ansible Pilot.