Hi, I am not sure whether someone has come across this issue previously - trying to search the group for 'when' and 'is defined' did not yield me anything useful. So I am posting it as a new topic here. I have encountered that in case I use 'when:' clause where I need to test whether one variable is set to 'true' and another one is defined, the following playbook triggers action even if the first variable is 'false':
cat > test_playbook.yaml <<EOF --- - hosts: all gather_facts: false tasks: - name: Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined local_action: command echo "Yes {{ var1 }} is true and {{ var2 }} is defined" when: var1 and var2 is defined EOF $ ansible-playbook -i host -v test_playbook.yaml --extra-vars "var1=false var2='something'" PLAY [all] ******************************************************************** TASK: [Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined] ************************* changed: [localhost] => {"changed": true, "cmd": ["echo", "Yes false is true and something is defined"], "delta": "0:00:00.003256", "end": "2014-02-04 11:19:56.720699", "rc": 0, "start": "2014-02-04 11:19:56.717443", "stderr": "", "stdout": "Yes false is true and something is defined"} PLAY RECAP ******************************************************************** localhost : ok=1 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=0 Only if I change the conditions to be supplied on separate 'when:' lines, it works as expected: cat > test1_playbook.yaml <<EOF --- - hosts: all gather_facts: false tasks: - name: Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined local_action: command echo "Yes {{ var1 }} is true and {{ var2 }} is defined" when: var2 is defined when: var1 EOF $ ansible-playbook -i host -v test_playbook.yaml --extra-vars "var1=false var2='something'" PLAY [all] ******************************************************************** TASK: [Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined] ************************* skipping: [localhost] PLAY RECAP ******************************************************************** localhost : ok=0 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 $ ansible-playbook -i host -v test_playbook.yaml --extra-vars "var1=true var2='something'" PLAY [all] ******************************************************************** TASK: [Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined] ************************* changed: [localhost] => {"changed": true, "cmd": ["echo", "Yes true is true and something is defined"], "delta": "0:00:00.002733", "end": "2014-02-04 11:22:20.289360", "rc": 0, "start": "2014-02-04 11:22:20.286627", "stderr": "", "stdout": "Yes true is true and something is defined"} PLAY RECAP ******************************************************************** localhost : ok=1 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=0 However in this case it fails (not skips) when the var2 is undefined and var1 is true, which is not really a desired behaviour: $ ansible-playbook -i host -v test_playbook.yaml --extra-vars "var1=true" PLAY [all] ******************************************************************** TASK: [Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined] ************************* fatal: [localhost] => One or more undefined variables: 'var2' is undefined FATAL: all hosts have already failed -- aborting PLAY RECAP ******************************************************************** to retry, use: --limit @/Users/roman/test_playbook.yaml.retry localhost : ok=0 changed=0 unreachable=1 failed=0 The order of 'when's also matters, in case their order is reverted like follows when: var1 when: var2 is defined the playbook starts behaving like in the first example where 'when' conditions were supplied on one line using the 'and' operator. If I use when: var1==true and var2 is defined the playbook would skip the action even all conditions are satisfied: $ ansible-playbook -i host -v test_playbook.yaml --extra-vars "var1=true var2='defined'" PLAY [all] ******************************************************************** TASK: [Play only if var1 is true and var2 is defined] ************************* skipping: [localhost] PLAY RECAP ******************************************************************** localhost : ok=0 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 The docs<http://docs.ansible.com/playbooks_conditionals.html#the-when-statement> do not shed any more light on that strange behaviour. Thanks a lot in advance, With kind regards, Roman -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ansible Project" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ansible-project+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to ansible-project@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.