# Could not find or access FILE-XY on the Ansible Controller

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/could-not-find-or-access-file-xy-on-the-ansible-controller/2907>\
**Category:** Get Help\
**Tags:** awx\
**Created:** [December 14, 2023, 12:52pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/could-not-find-or-access-file-xy-on-the-ansible-controller/2907 "2023-12-14T12:52:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![emrehayta](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/emrehayta/32/1795_2.png) [@emrehayta](https://forum.ansible.com/u/emrehayta)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 12:52pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/could-not-find-or-access-file-xy-on-the-ansible-controller/2907/1 "2023-12-14T12:52:38Z")

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Hello,

unfortunately i get the following error while executing my playbook with cp module.

> Could not find or access ‘/var/lib/awx/projects/ansible/serverconfigs/debian12/etc/aliases’ on the Ansible Controller

This File is available on this path.  
From the pods task and web the path /var/lib/projects/ looks like:

sh-5.1$ ls -lha  
total 20K  
drwxrwxr-x. 4 awx 1000 4.0K Dec 14 11:10 .  
drwxrwxr-x. 1 root root 4.0K Dec 14 11:17 …  
drwxr-xr-x. 9 awx root 4.0K Apr 12 2023 \_8\_\_ansible  
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 awx root 0 Jul 27 2022 \_8\_\_ansible.lock  
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 awx root 11 Dec 14 11:10 ansible → \_8\_\_ansible  
drwxr-xr-x. 3 awx root 4.0K Nov 4 2022 .\_\_awx\_cache

Any suggestions?

If i execute this playbook on my host without using AWX it works without any problems.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kurokobo](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/kurokobo/32/182_2.png) [@kurokobo](https://forum.ansible.com/u/kurokobo)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 1:22pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/could-not-find-or-access-file-xy-on-the-ansible-controller/2907/2 "2023-12-14T13:22:59Z")

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Am I correct in assuming that your playbook and `serverconfigs/debian12/etc/aliases` are stored in the same repository on the SCM?

If so you do not need to specify the file as an absolute path. Simply use relative path.  
If you want to specify it as an absolute path anyway, you can probably specify `/runner/project/serverconfigs/debian12/etc/aliases`.

The playbook runs in a different pod that is neither web nor task, called the automation job pod.  
This pod will not have `/var/lib/awx/projects` mounted, but will use the project directory otherwise transferred from task pod to `/runner/project`.  
Thus, the paths to files under your project directory will be under `/runner/project`.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![emrehayta](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/emrehayta/32/1795_2.png) [@emrehayta](https://forum.ansible.com/u/emrehayta)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 2:09pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/could-not-find-or-access-file-xy-on-the-ansible-controller/2907/3 "2023-12-14T14:09:14Z")

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Thanks a lot, this helped!