# BigIP timing out while running playbook

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/bigip-timing-out-while-running-playbook/27126>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [March 27, 2018, 12:36pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/bigip-timing-out-while-running-playbook/27126 "2018-03-27T12:36:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![eric\_landers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/47e85d/32.png) [@eric\_landers](https://forum.ansible.com/u/eric_landers)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 12:36pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/bigip-timing-out-while-running-playbook/27126/1 "2018-03-27T12:36:40Z")

</div>

[Answer your Question](https://devcentral.f5.com/questions/bigip-timing-out-while-running-playbook-58795#add-reply)

0

Rate this Quest

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mhalano](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/mhalano/32/1815_2.png) [@mhalano](https://forum.ansible.com/u/mhalano)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 12:40pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/bigip-timing-out-while-running-playbook/27126/2 "2018-03-27T12:40:03Z")

</div>

Could you send more debug messages? I think you should delegate the  
task to localhost instead of use "connection: local".

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tim1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b782af/32.png) [@Tim1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Tim1)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2018, 3:16pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/bigip-timing-out-while-running-playbook/27126/3 "2018-03-27T15:16:57Z")

</div>

It's likely due to your connection parameters.

First, take a look at your "server" parameter. You're specifying  
inventory\_hostname for it, so the module expects that the value that  
is eventually dropped there (the host in "mygroups" is resolvable in  
either DNS or your hosts file). For example,

[mygroups[  
bigip1  
bigip2

If either of the above do not respond with a ping (ie, ping bigip1)  
then ansible will fail too.

Alternatively, if you are using IP addresses for your host entries, ala

[mygroups]  
1.1.1.1  
2.2.2.2

Then, again, your ansible controller needs to be able to ping them.

Specifying "connection: local" and "delegate\_to: localhost" are  
(almost) two ways of saying the same thing. Both run the task locally  
on your box, the exception is that with connection: local it happens  
for \_all\_ tasks. Where-as delegate\_to: localhost it only happens with  
the task that is tagged with delegate\_to. Also, connection: local is  
useful for BIG-IP versions less than 12 because it stops the failure  
of gather\_facts (alternatively set gather\_facts: false to stop the  
failure). So you can use either connection: local or delegate\_to:  
localhost, but you do not need to use both.

The next problem is that you have a username of "root" specified in your task.

The root user has no TMUI (web) equivalent. So you cannot log into the  
box with root over REST. All of the F5 modules use REST by default. So  
if you are using the modules, you (almost) always want to specify the  
'admin' account, not the 'root' account. Things change slightly on  
12.x where-in you can specify any account with the Administrator role,  
prior to 12.x, you must specify 'admin' specifically.

The last thing I would look at is your mention of SSH. If you do  
indeed want to use SSH to connect to the box, the \_only\_ module that  
supports this is bigip\_command. To make use of SSH specifically  
though, you need to set "transport: cli" in your task. This overrides  
the default "transport: rest" and attempts an SSH connection. Continue  
to use either "connection: local" or "delegate\_to: localhost" when you  
use "transport: cli".

If the problem persists, the F5 provides more 1x1 support by visiting  
their Github issue tracker for their F5 modules found here

[https://github.com/F5Networks/f5-ansible](https://github.com/F5Networks/f5-ansible)

I know this because I work there and I'm the one that writes all these modules.

Hope that helps,

-tim