# Creating a virtualenv as another user

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/creating-a-virtualenv-as-another-user/13375>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [August 28, 2013, 3:09am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/creating-a-virtualenv-as-another-user/13375 "2013-08-28T03:09:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Gregory\_Taylor1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cc9497/32.png) [@Gregory\_Taylor1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Gregory_Taylor1)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:09am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/creating-a-virtualenv-as-another-user/13375/1 "2013-08-28T03:09:28Z")

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I’m wanting to create a new account, then create a virtualenv beneath said account. Assuming my new user is created, and is called ‘cbweb’, I was trying to do something like this:

- name: set up web app virtualenv  
pip: name=flask virtualenv=/home/cbweb/.virtualenvs/here\_be\_virtualenv  
user: cbweb  
sudo: True

I get an error when I try to run this:

$ vagrant provision  
[dev] Running provisioner: ansible…  
ERROR: multiple actions specified in task set up web app virtualenv  
Ansible failed to complete successfully. Any error output should be  
visible above. Please fix these errors and try again.

I am assuming that the user/sudo flags aren’t available for this ‘pip’ module. If this is true, what’s the best way to idempotently create a virtualenv as another user? I guess I could use the “command” module with the “creates” param, but wanted to see if there was a better way to make this work.

Apologies if there is an obvious answer to this, my Googling turned up a bunch of unrelated stuff.

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**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:** [August 28, 2013, 1:13pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/creating-a-virtualenv-as-another-user/13375/2 "2013-08-28T13:13:07Z")

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User is not a task tag as its the user mgmt module. You want sudo\_user

Brian Coca

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**Author:** ![Gregory\_Taylor1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cc9497/32.png) [@Gregory\_Taylor1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Gregory_Taylor1)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 11:42pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/creating-a-virtualenv-as-another-user/13375/3 "2013-08-28T23:42:41Z")

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Thanks, I’m still a bit confused as to when to use one or the other. I changed this and everything appears to have worked well.

Something I did notice is that using a variable in place of a string value for sudo\_user seems to result in a syntax error:

- name: set up web app virtualenv  
pip: name=flask virtualenv=/home/cbweb/.virtualenvs/here\_be\_virtualenv  
sudo: True  
sudo\_user: {{ unprivved\_app\_user }}

$ vagrant provision  
[dev] Running provisioner: ansible…  
ERROR: Syntax Error while loading YAML script, /Users/gtaylor/Documents/workspace/vagrant/pathwright/provisioning/roles/python\_host/tasks/main.yml  
Note: The error may actually appear before this position: line 54, column 15

sudo: True  
sudo\_user: {{ unprivved\_app\_user }}  
^  
Ansible failed to complete successfully. Any error output should be  
visible above. Please fix these errors and try again.

The variable is populated and works in other tasks in this same file, but always seems to die due to a syntax error in this case. Any ideas?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [August 28, 2013, 11:44pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/creating-a-virtualenv-as-another-user/13375/4 "2013-08-28T23:44:02Z")

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You been to quote {{ if they are first thing after :.

Brian Coca

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Gregory\_Taylor1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cc9497/32.png) [@Gregory\_Taylor1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Gregory_Taylor1)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 1:23am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/creating-a-virtualenv-as-another-user/13375/5 "2013-08-29T01:23:02Z")

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Thanks. I tried using a dollar sign instead of braces, and that seemed to work as well. Is it more “correct” to use the quoted braces or the dollar sign variable in this case?

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**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:** [August 29, 2013, 1:27am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/creating-a-virtualenv-as-another-user/13375/6 "2013-08-29T01:27:00Z")

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both are correct, but ${} is deprecated and might be dropped in the future.

thing: { key: value } is shorthand for a hash/dictionary in yaml, that is  
why the jinja substitution needs to be escaped  
thing : "{{ var }}" or yaml will think you have an incomplete hash, but not  
needed when part of a module

thing: name={{var}} as yaml will not think of it as a hash but as part of  
the value name=...

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Gregory\_Taylor1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cc9497/32.png) [@Gregory\_Taylor1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Gregory_Taylor1)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 1:30am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/creating-a-virtualenv-as-another-user/13375/7 "2013-08-29T01:30:03Z")

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Thanks for that explanation, I’m not extremely familiar with YAML.