avoid ignored error message in ansible

In ansbile playbook, the below style can be used to check the result of a script or command, and give a meaningful message if the task fails.

- name: check stack existance
  hosts: localhost
  any_errors_fatal: True
  tasks:
    - name: check stack existance
      command: openstack stack show {{ stack_name }}
      register: result
      ignore_errors: true

    - name: check stack existance result
      fail: msg="stack {{ stack_name }} exists"
      when: result is succeeded

In normal cases, the first task will fail and the second task will be skipped as below, when the playbook is run.

PLAY [check stack existance] **********************************************************

TASK [check stack existance] **********************************************************
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! => {“changed”: true, “cmd”: [“openstack”, “stack”, “show”, “leonstack”], “delta”: “0:00:00.773096”, “end”: “2018-09-10 20:59:32.244563”, “msg”: “non-zero return code”, “rc”: 1, “start”: “2018-09-10 20:59:31.471467”, “stderr”: “Stack not found: leonstack”, “stderr_lines”: [“Stack not found: leonstack”], “stdout”: “”, “stdout_lines”: []}
…ignoring

TASK [check stack existance result] ***************************************************
skipping: [localhost]

PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************
localhost : ok=1 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=0

however, this error message sometimes may confuse customers because it is reporting failure. Our product tester also complained about this. After searching this ignoring issue, I found a good solution as below:

- name: check stack existance
  hosts: localhost
  any_errors_fatal: True
  tasks:
    - name: check stack existance
      command: openstack stack show {{ stack_name }}
      register: result
      failed_when: false

    - name: check stack existance result
      fail: msg="stack {{ stack_name }} exists"
      when: result.rc == 0

Using this style, the first task will always succeed and the second task will give a meaningful message if the result of the first task doesn’t meet the expect.

Below is a successful case.

PLAY [check stack existance] **********************************************************

TASK [check stack existance] **********************************************************
changed: [localhost]

TASK [check stack existance result] ***************************************************
skipping: [localhost]

PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************
localhost : ok=1 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=0

And below is a failure case.

PLAY [check stack existance] **********************************************************

TASK [check stack existance] **********************************************************
changed: [localhost]

TASK [check stack existance result] ***************************************************
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! => {“changed”: false, “msg”: “stack leonstack exists”}

NO MORE HOSTS LEFT ********************************************************************

NO MORE HOSTS LEFT ********************************************************************
to retry, use: –limit @/home/leon/demo.retry

PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************
localhost : ok=1 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=1

Ansible is really a good automation tool. Hope this post can help you.