# chown failed

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/chown-failed/21434>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [May 13, 2016, 3:45pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/chown-failed/21434 "2016-05-13T15:45:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MangusB\_rother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@MangusB\_rother](https://forum.ansible.com/u/MangusB_rother)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 3:45pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/chown-failed/21434/1 "2016-05-13T15:45:50Z")

</div>

I am getting a “chown failed” error when i am running the file module to try and chown an archive file on my machine using ansible. I have no clue what this could be caused by. Help please 🙂

I have the following role:

```auto
---
- name: MyDesc
  file:
    path: "{{path}}"
    owner: "{{owner}}"
    group: "{{group}}"
    mode: "{{mode}}"
    force: true
    state: directory
    recurse: true
  ignore_errors: "{{ error_ignore_flag }}"

```

and i am calling it as follows through ansible tower:

```auto
name: Test
  hosts: "{{GLB_ansible_tower_machine}}"
  remote_user: "{{GLB_remote_user}}"
  become: yes
  become_user: "{{GLB_remote_user}}"
  become_method: sudo
  
  roles:
    - { role: file_chown, path: "/tmp/upload.ear", owner: "myUser", group: "myUser", mode: "0750", error_ignore_flag: no }

```

I am running this as a user who has sudo access. And /tmp/upload.ear is an archive file with the following properties:

ls -lahZ /tmp | grep upload.ear  
-rw-r-----. myAnsibleTowerUser myAnsibleTowerUser unconfined\_u:object\_r:user\_tmp\_t:s0 upload.ear

When I run this however I get the following:

```auto
{
  "group": "my_group",
  "uid": 11111111,
  "changed": false,
  "failed": true,
  "state": "directory",
  "gid": 11111111,
  "secontext": "unconfined_u:object_r:user_tmp_t:s0",
  "mode": "0750",
  "msg": "chown failed",
  "owner": "myAnsibleTowerUser",
  "path": "/tmp/upload.ear",
  "size": 6,
  "_ansible_no_log": false,
  "play": "Test",
  "task": "file_chown : MyDesc",
  "role": "file_chown",
  "ignore_errors": false,
  "status": "failed",
  "module_name": "file",
  "module_args": {
    "directory_mode": null,
    "force": true,
    "remote_src": null,
    "path": "/tmp/upload.ear",
    "owner": "myUser",
    "follow": false,
    "group": "myUser",
    "state": "directory",
    "content": null,
    "serole": null,
    "diff_peek": null,
    "setype": null,
    "selevel": null,
    "original_basename": null,
    "regexp": null,
    "validate": null,
    "src": null,
    "seuser": null,
    "recurse": true,
    "delimiter": null,
    "mode": "0750",
    "backup": null
  },
  "created": "2016-05-13T15:38:12.022Z",
  "host_id": 12,
  "host_name": "myHost",
  "id": 11111,
  "parent": 11222,
  "event": "Host Failed"
}

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johannes\_Kastl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Johannes\_Kastl](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Johannes_Kastl)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 7:57pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/chown-failed/21434/2 "2016-05-13T19:57:52Z")

</div>

Normally you want to elevate your rights to root, so this should be  
"become\_user: root". Now you elevate to yourself again...

Johannes

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MangusB\_rother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@MangusB\_rother](https://forum.ansible.com/u/MangusB_rother)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2016, 6:51am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/chown-failed/21434/3 "2016-05-15T06:51:36Z")

</div>

The remote user has sudo access though so there is no need to become root directly.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johannes\_Kastl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Johannes\_Kastl](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Johannes_Kastl)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2016, 7:17am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/chown-failed/21434/4 "2016-05-15T07:17:01Z")

</div>

Do your homework and read the docs.  
[https://docs.ansible.com/become.html](https://docs.ansible.com/become.html)

become is the new name for what was sudo in previous ansible releases.

become means you elevate your rights. And in the default it uses sudo.  
But as you can use su, pbrun and some others now it was renamed to  
"become".

become: yes  
become\_method: sudo

But if you sudo to your user (the same user issuing the sudo command)  
you don't get any more rights than you have. Clear now?

If you just omit that line it should work, as sudo normally uses  
become\_user root...

Johannes