# capturing logs from ansible/ansible-playbook runs **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [July 4, 2013, 6:22am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064 "2013-07-04T06:22:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Seth\_Vidal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Seth\_Vidal](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Seth_Vidal)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:22am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064/1 "2013-07-04T06:22:28Z")
I wanted something like sfromm's ansible-report system but for a variety of reasons I was concerned about the single sqlite db. So I started hacking up a solution for lots of simultaneous runs of ansible and capturing logs of the whole thing. this is a callback plugin: [http://infrastructure.fedoraproject.org/cgit/ansible.git/tree/callback\_plugins/logdetail.py](http://infrastructure.fedoraproject.org/cgit/ansible.git/tree/callback_plugins/logdetail.py) and this is a viewer for those logs: [http://infrastructure.fedoraproject.org/cgit/ansible.git/tree/scripts/logview](http://infrastructure.fedoraproject.org/cgit/ansible.git/tree/scripts/logview) If you put the callback\_plugin in a path for callback plugins specified in your /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg then it will also capture data on tasks run via ansible - not just ansible-playbook. This is an example of the output from running logview -d yesterday -p mirrorlist mirrorlist 20.50.54 host1 Jul 03 2013 20:54:04 54 CHANGED /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg 20.50.54 host1 Jul 03 2013 20:55:29 75 CHANGED restart nrpe 20.50.54 host2 Jul 03 2013 20:54:06 54 CHANGED /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg 20.50.54 host2 Jul 03 2013 20:55:31 75 CHANGED restart nrpe 20.50.54 host3 Jul 03 2013 20:54:05 54 CHANGED /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg 20.50.54 host3 Jul 03 2013 20:55:29 75 CHANGED restart nrpe I thought I'd post it here in case it is helpful to anyone. -sv ---
**Author:** ![jpmens1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jpmens1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/jpmens1)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 8:35am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064/2 "2013-07-04T08:35:16Z")
Seth, > So I started hacking up a solution for lots of simultaneous runs of > ansible and capturing logs of the whole thing. that's lovely! I'd like to propose the following patch, which avoids a traceback when the process doesn't have a controlling tty (happens here, dunno why). Regards,         -JP > **(attachments)** > > [logdetail.patch](https://forum.ansible.com/uploads/short-url/oakyouNPRIViBI8SDzN22eXvndD.patch) (1.65 KB) ---
**Author:** ![Seth\_Vidal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Seth\_Vidal](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Seth_Vidal)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 5:43pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064/3 "2013-07-04T17:43:15Z")
You are absolutely correct. Thank you for that. I had not tested it outside of a controlling TTY. -sv ---
**Author:** ![Seth\_Vidal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Seth\_Vidal](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Seth_Vidal)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:01pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064/4 "2013-07-04T18:01:04Z")
I found one bug - if I sudo -i to root - geteuid() doesn't return who I \_was\_ - only 'root' which is unfortunate - I'll have to see if I can get a best possible situation which uses getlogin() if possible What's the exception if you don't have a controlling tty with os.getlogin() - I can just catch it and use geteuid() -sv ---
**Author:** ![jpmens1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jpmens1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/jpmens1)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:20pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064/5 "2013-07-04T18:20:02Z")
> I found one bug - if I sudo -i to root - geteuid() doesn't return who I > \_was\_ - only 'root' which is unfortunate - I'll have to see if I can > get a best possible situation which uses getlogin() if possible maybe         os.getenv('HOME', os.getenv('LOGNAME', 'unknown')) (Sorry, I'm away from $cust at the moment: can't check on the exception I got.)         -JP ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064/6 "2013-07-04T18:25:43Z")
BTW, if folks are interested in some really nice views into logging, I’d recommend signing up for the AWX webinar here: [http://ansibleworks.enterthemeeting.com/m/DBVI6YDJ](http://ansibleworks.enterthemeeting.com/m/DBVI6YDJ) This is coming out August 8th, hopefully about a week after the AWX release. You’ll be able to try it out free for a small number of nodes. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:26pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064/7 "2013-07-04T18:26:19Z")
Slight correction, webinar is August 8th – logging is out as part of the release πŸ™‚ ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 6:30pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064/8 "2013-07-04T18:30:46Z")
Am I terrible with words today or what πŸ™‚ β€œout” means β€œis part of the release” πŸ™‚ ---
**Author:** ![Seth\_Vidal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Seth\_Vidal](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Seth_Vidal)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 7:27pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064/9 "2013-07-04T19:27:38Z")
I ended up doing def getlogin():     try:         user = os.getlogin()     except OSError, e:         user = pwd.getpwuid(os.geteuid())[0]     return user which seems to step around it just fine -sv ---
**Author:** ![Stephen\_Fromm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@Stephen\_Fromm](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Stephen_Fromm)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064/10 "2013-07-04T20:11:02Z")
> I wanted something like sfromm's ansible-report system but for a > variety of reasons I was concerned about the single sqlite db. One comment on the above. I plan to devote some time in the coming weeks to work on the concurrency problem when using a sqlite database. One can still choose to use another database that doesn't have the limitations of sqlite -- whatever sqlalchemy supports should work with ansible-report. Of course, that does introduce dependencies that sqlite doesn't have. πŸ™‚ > So I started hacking up a solution for lots of simultaneous runs of > ansible and capturing logs of the whole thing. > > this is a callback plugin: > > [http://infrastructure.fedoraproject.org/cgit/ansible.git/tree/callback\_plugins/logdetail.py](http://infrastructure.fedoraproject.org/cgit/ansible.git/tree/callback_plugins/logdetail.py) > > and this is a viewer for those logs: > > [http://infrastructure.fedoraproject.org/cgit/ansible.git/tree/scripts/logview](http://infrastructure.fedoraproject.org/cgit/ansible.git/tree/scripts/logview) > > If you put the callback\_plugin in a path for callback plugins specified > in your /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg then it will also capture data on > tasks run via ansible - not just ansible-playbook. > > This is an example of the output from running > > logview -d yesterday -p mirrorlist > > mirrorlist > 20.50.54 host1 Jul 03 2013 20:54:04 54 CHANGED /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg > 20.50.54 host1 Jul 03 2013 20:55:29 75 CHANGED restart nrpe > 20.50.54 host2 Jul 03 2013 20:54:06 54 CHANGED /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg > 20.50.54 host2 Jul 03 2013 20:55:31 75 CHANGED restart nrpe > 20.50.54 host3 Jul 03 2013 20:54:05 54 CHANGED /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg > 20.50.54 host3 Jul 03 2013 20:55:29 75 CHANGED restart nrpe > > I thought I'd post it here in case it is helpful to anyone. Looking at logdetail.py, how does it handle the case where you have a playbook with the same name, but in different paths? I like the minimal dependencies of this approach and that it is easy to prune with something like logrotate. ---
**Author:** ![jpmens1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jpmens1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/jpmens1)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 5:24am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064/11 "2013-07-05T05:24:25Z")
Seth, > What's the exception if you don't have a controlling tty with > os.getlogin() - I can just catch it and use geteuid() The exception is         OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory I remember now, that the message stumped me. πŸ˜‰ But you've fixed it all, so ignore.         -JP ---
**Author:** ![Seth\_Vidal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Seth\_Vidal](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Seth_Vidal)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 2:34pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064/12 "2013-07-05T14:34:01Z")
> One comment on the above. I plan to devote some time in the coming > weeks to work on the concurrency problem when using a sqlite > database. One can still choose to use another database that doesn't > have the limitations of sqlite -- whatever sqlalchemy supports should > work with ansible-report. Of course, that does introduce > dependencies that sqlite doesn't have. πŸ™‚ cool! > \> logview -d yesterday -p mirrorlist > \> > \> mirrorlist > \> 20.50.54 host1 Jul 03 2013 20:54:04 54 CHANGED /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg > \> 20.50.54 host1 Jul 03 2013 20:55:29 75 CHANGED restart nrpe > \> 20.50.54 host2 Jul 03 2013 20:54:06 54 CHANGED /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg > \> 20.50.54 host2 Jul 03 2013 20:55:31 75 CHANGED restart nrpe > \> 20.50.54 host3 Jul 03 2013 20:54:05 54 CHANGED /etc/nagios/nrpe.cfg > \> 20.50.54 host3 Jul 03 2013 20:55:29 75 CHANGED restart nrpe > \> > \> > \> I thought I'd post it here in case it is helpful to anyone. > \> > > Looking at logdetail.py, how does it handle the case where you have a > playbook with the same name, but in different paths? It doesn't. I realized that when I wrote it and just kinda said "meh". If anyone would like to fix it I'm happy to accept it - but in our usecase the likelihood of having such a situation is extremely low. > I like the minimal dependencies of this approach and that it is easy > to prune with something like logrotate. I like that your sqlite db is a million times easier to search πŸ™‚ -sv ---
**Author:** ![Brian\_Coca1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Brian\_Coca1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Coca1)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 1:09am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/capturing-logs-from-ansible-ansible-playbook-runs/13064/13 "2013-07-06T01:09:49Z")
idk, i find grep and awk much easier to use than sql when looking at events.