Ansible playbook treating pythonpath as a directory or file

Question

 - name: Migrate graphite settings
   command: 
     argv:
       - PYTHONPATH=/opt/graphite/webapp/ 
       - django-admin 
       - migrate 
       - --settings=graphite.settings
   ignore_errors: yes

Is producing:

fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "cmd": "PYTHONPATH=/opt/graphite/webapp/ django-admin migrate --settings=graphite.settings", "msg": "[Errno 2] No such file or directory: b'PYTHONPATH=/opt/graphite/webapp/'", "rc": 2}

I think Ansible is reading PYTHONPATH as a file or directory. Which it isn't. How can I get a command to treat PYTHONPATH= as just setting the PYTHONPATH value for a command?

mdaniel mdaniel · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-28T19:13:23

There are two options, one more ansible-y than the other:

The ansible way is environment: as in

 - name: Migrate graphite settings
   environment:
     PYTHONPATH: /opt/graphite/webapp/
   command: 
     argv:
       - django-admin 
       - migrate 
       - --settings=graphite.settings
   ignore_errors: yes

and the other is to use the env command such that becomes something that can be executed; that SOME_VAR=some-value some_command syntax is a shell construct, and thus can only be used with shell: or by explicitly wrapping argv in a [sh, -c] which would defeat the purpose of command:

 - name: Migrate graphite settings
   command: 
     argv:
       - env
       - PYTHONPATH=/opt/graphite/webapp/ 
       - django-admin 
       - migrate 
       - --settings=graphite.settings
   ignore_errors: yes

Ansible playbook treating pythonpath as a directory or file

1 Answers