# Command module and idempotancy. **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Tags:** ubuntu\ **Created:** [June 11, 2013, 7:51am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/command-module-and-idempotancy/12943 "2013-06-11T07:51:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Steve\_Irvine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Steve\_Irvine](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Steve_Irvine)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 7:51am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/command-module-and-idempotancy/12943/1 "2013-06-11T07:51:07Z")
Hi all, I’m writing a playbook to install check\_mk. There are packages in the Ubuntu repos but they are old. The developers provide up to date debs, so currently I use the copy module to drop the deb on the target then execute dpkg using the command module with creates=/path/to/installed/exe to give me some idempotancy. Does this seem a reasonable course of action? It seems to work… Certainly the play shows skipped the second time it’s run. Does anyone do anything ‘cooler’ in the same situation? 🙂 I’m thinking about upgrades, with no package manager, the best I can think of is to store the current output of running the agent with --version in a var file, then when running the playbook run the agent on the target with --version and only do the upgrade if they’re different. I reckon that ought to work… Has anyone done anything like this? ---
**Author:** ![Leen\_Besselink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a183cd/32.png) [@Leen\_Besselink](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Leen_Besselink)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 8:15am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/command-module-and-idempotancy/12943/2 "2013-06-11T08:15:40Z")
> Hi all, > > I'm writing a playbook to install check\_mk. > > There are packages in the Ubuntu repos but they are old. The developers > provide up to date debs, so currently I use the copy module to drop the deb > on the target then execute dpkg using the command module with > creates=/path/to/installed/exe to give me some idempotancy. > > Does this seem a reasonable course of action? It seems to work... Certainly > the play shows skipped the second time it's run. Does anyone do anything > 'cooler' in the same situation? 🙂 The 'best' method is create an APT repository on a HTTP-server and add your repository key so it is trusted and add a file to /etc/apt/sources.list.d and use apt-get to install it. It might take some time to set up a repository the first time, though. In all cases the package will need to be named like 0.9.7.7irvine1 so it does not clash on upgrades. 0.9.7.7irvine1 is considered a higher version than 0.9.7.7 by apt/dpkg ---
**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:** [June 11, 2013, 10:39am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/command-module-and-idempotancy/12943/3 "2013-06-11T10:39:19Z")
+1 to the repo! ---
**Author:** ![Brice\_Burgess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@Brice\_Burgess](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brice_Burgess)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 3:04pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/command-module-and-idempotancy/12943/4 "2013-06-11T15:04:46Z")
reprepo can be used to setup your personal repository; see: [http://ianlawrence.info/random-stuff/setting-up-a-personal-debian-repository](http://ianlawrence.info/random-stuff/setting-up-a-personal-debian-repository) as a reference. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Irvine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Steve\_Irvine](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Steve_Irvine)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 5:46pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/command-module-and-idempotancy/12943/5 "2013-06-11T17:46:36Z")
That's really helpful, thanks very much!