# ansible until with number of retries **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [April 29, 2020, 8:52am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-until-with-number-of-retries/32809 "2020-04-29T08:52:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ivo\_Hechmann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/91b2a8/32.png) [@Ivo\_Hechmann](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Ivo_Hechmann)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 8:52am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-until-with-number-of-retries/32809/1 "2020-04-29T08:52:47Z")
Hello team, i want to call a shell script from ansible, this script may fail, so ansible should retry the command, lets say 5 tries: - name: process something, fail if not 5 files in tmpdir shell: “/home/ivo/workspace/splunk-envs/scripts/retry/run.sh” ignore\_errors: True register: status\_var until: status\_var is not failed delay: 1 retries: 4 That works pretty fine. Now, how can I pass the retry number to the run.sh? The script should log, and it would be nice if the script would know if there will be a retry on failure or not (last run or so). I saw in documentation that there is some loop\_control and ansible\_loop\_index, but i cannot combine these variables with the shell command in an until-loop. Is there a syntax problem or some better way the achieve my goal? What I have tried: - name: process something, fail if not 5 files in tmpdir loop\_control: extended: yes shell: “/home/ivo/workspace/splunk-envs/scripts/retry/run.sh {{ lookup(‘vars’, ansible\_loop.index) }}” ignore\_errors: True register: status\_var until: status\_var is not failed delay: 1 retries: 4 Thank you very much for any hints on this… Ivo ---
**Author:** ![racke](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/racke/32/4767_2.png) [@racke](https://forum.ansible.com/u/racke)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 10:16am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-until-with-number-of-retries/32809/2 "2020-04-29T10:16:56Z")
> Hello team, > > i want to call a shell script from ansible, this script may fail, so ansible should retry the command, lets say 5 tries: > > - name: process something, fail if not 5 files in tmpdir > shell: "/home/ivo/workspace/splunk-envs/scripts/retry/run.sh" > ignore\_errors: True > register: status\_var > until: status\_var is not failed > delay: 1 > retries: 4 > > That works pretty fine. Now, how can I pass the retry number to the run.sh? The script should log, and it would be nice > if the script would know if there will be a retry on failure or not (last run or so). > I saw in documentation that there is some loop\_control and ansible\_loop\_index, but i cannot combine these variables with > the shell command in an until-loop. Is there a syntax problem or some better > way the achieve my goal? > > What I have tried: > > - name: process something, fail if not 5 files in tmpdir > loop\_control: > extended: yes > shell: "/home/ivo/workspace/splunk-envs/scripts/retry/run.sh {{ lookup('vars', ansible\_loop.index) }}" > ignore\_errors: True > register: status\_var > until: status\_var is not failed > delay: 1 > retries: 4 > > Thank you very much for any hints on this... > Ivo I don't understand why Ansible should handle the retries. Write a proper script or a wrapper around the existing one. Regards         Racke ---
**Author:** ![vbotka](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/vbotka/32/359_2.png) [@vbotka](https://forum.ansible.com/u/vbotka)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 10:30am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-until-with-number-of-retries/32809/3 "2020-04-29T10:30:45Z")
IMHO, neither "shell" nor "loop\_control" will make it. The runstring in "shell" will be evaluated only once when the module starts. The "loop\_control" looks promising, but there is no option how to break a "loop" in Ansible. The best option would be to pass a variable, for example "number\_of retries" both to the script and to the module, and let the script make the counting on its own. For example,   - name: process something, fail if not 5 files in tmpdir     command: "run.sh {{ number\_of\_retries }}"     ...     retries: "{{ number\_of)retries }}" HTH,   -vlado ---
**Author:** ![Ivo\_Hechmann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/91b2a8/32.png) [@Ivo\_Hechmann](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Ivo_Hechmann)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 12:21pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-until-with-number-of-retries/32809/4 "2020-04-29T12:21:02Z")
Hello Stefan and Vladimir… Yeah I think you are right, handling that in ansible would prevent me to put that retry-poison in shell, but it looks like there is no suitable solution in ansible, so I will put a shell wrapper in front of the scripts. Thank you very much for your thoughts… Ivo ---
**Author:** ![vbotka](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/vbotka/32/359_2.png) [@vbotka](https://forum.ansible.com/u/vbotka)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 1:08pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-until-with-number-of-retries/32809/5 "2020-04-29T13:08:42Z")
Well, this is how Ansible works. A task is sent from the controller to the remote host and the remote host will return the results to the controller after the task will have completed. When the time-out of the remote host in not predictable "Asynchronous Actions and Polling" might help to improve the efficiency [https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user\_guide/playbooks\_async.html#asynchronous-actions-and-polling](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/playbooks_async.html#asynchronous-actions-and-polling) In some case "ansible-pull" might fit the use-case better. [https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/cli/ansible-pull.html#ansible-pull](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/cli/ansible-pull.html#ansible-pull) HTH,   -vlado