Introduction
Today we’re going to talk about Ansible troubleshooting, specifically about the “This command has to be run under the root user” message. This fatal error message happens when we are trying to execute a module that requires more privilege during module execution. These circumstances are usually related to Ansible Playbook or Ansible configuration. I’m Luca Berton and welcome to today’s episode of Ansible Pilot.
Playbook
The best way of talking about Ansible troubleshooting is to jump in a live Playbook to show you practically the “This command has to be run under the root user” and how to solve it! This Playbook is going to try to install the “rsync” package on our target system.
error code
---
- name: Troubleshooting under the root user
hosts: all
become: false
tasks:
- name: rsync installed
ansible.builtin.package:
name: rsync
state: present
error execution
ansible-pilot $ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/demo/inventory troubleshooting/under_root_user_error.yml
PLAY [Troubleshooting under the root user] ********************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] ****************************************************************************
ok: [demo.example.com]
TASK [rsync installed] ****************************************************************************
fatal: [demo.example.com]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "msg": "This command has to be run under the root user.", "results": []}
PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************************
demo.example.com : ok=1 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=1 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0
ansible-pilot $
fix code
---
- name: Troubleshooting under the root user
hosts: all
become: true
tasks:
- name: rsync installed
ansible.builtin.package:
name: rsync
state: present
fix execution
ansible-pilot $ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/demo/inventory troubleshooting/under_root_user_fix.yml
PLAY [Troubleshooting under the root user] ********************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] ****************************************************************************
ok: [demo.example.com]
TASK [rsync installed] ****************************************************************************
ok: [demo.example.com]
PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************************
demo.example.com : ok=2 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0
ansible-pilot $
Conclusion
Now you know better how to troubleshoot the Ansible “This command has to be run under the root user.” message. Subscribe to the YouTube channel, Medium, and Website, X (formerly Twitter) to not miss the next episode of the Ansible Pilot.
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