Improve Playbook Debugging Using Ansible Lint

Explore how Ansible lint, a crucial command-line tool, improves Ansible automation by checking code quality, reducing errors, and enhancing playbook reliability.

Introduction

Ansible lint is a command-line tool that is crucial in Ansible automation. It acts as a code quality checker, helping users identify errors and providing suggestions for playbook improvements. This tool is indispensable for maintaining the integrity and reliability of Ansible playbooks, reducing debugging time, and ensuring smooth automation processes. In this article, we’ll delve into the world of Ansible lint. We’ll explore how to install it, showcase some practical use cases, and Playbooknstrate how it can prevent errors during playbook execution.

Installing Ansible Lint

Before we dive into the benefits of Ansible lint, let’s first install it. There are multiple ways to do this:

1. Using pip:

The simplest way to install Ansible lint is via Python Package Manager (pip). Run the following command:

``bash


python3 -m pip install --user ansible-lint



2. On Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL):

If you’re on RHEL systems with a Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform subscription, you can use dnf to install Ansible lint:

`bash


dnf install ansible-lint



3. From the GitHub source repository:

You can also install Ansible lint directly from the source repository on GitHub, but this method requires pip>=22.3.1:

`bash


pip3 install git+https://github.com/ansible/ansible-lint



With Ansible lint successfully installed, let’s explore its benefits through two practical examples.

Ansible Lint Configuration File
One of the powerful features of Ansible lint is its configuration ability. You can tailor its behavior to your specific needs using a configuration file (.ansible-lint) in your working directory. For instance, you can exclude certain paths from linting:

`bash


profile: null
exclude_paths:
  - playbook.yml

In this example, we’ve excluded the playbook.yml path from linting. When you run Ansible lint in this directory, it won't check that specific playbook for errors.



Usage
Let’s showcase the capabilities and features of Ansible in two examples. In the first example, we presented an Ansible playbook snippet to update the APT cache on target hosts using the ansible.builtin.command module. However, Ansible Lint detected an issue and issued a warning. It pointed out that the playbook should use the apt module instead of command for this task. Following Ansible Lint's advice and making the necessary corrections, we ensured our playbook adhered to best practices, eliminating errors. In the second example, we showcased a playbook containing a syntax error. The playbook attempted to set an environment variable but had an indentation issue within the environment block. Ansible lint came to the rescue by pinpointing the exact location of the error. After rectifying the syntax error, our playbook became error-free and ready for smooth execution.

Example 1: Using a Built-in Module
Consider the following Ansible playbook snippet (playbook.yml) for Debian/Ubuntu Linux update:

``yaml

---

name: Update apt cac