# Debugging an "unreachable" error when connecting to openwrt

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/debugging-an-unreachable-error-when-connecting-to-openwrt/20759>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [March 3, 2016, 11:23am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/debugging-an-unreachable-error-when-connecting-to-openwrt/20759 "2016-03-03T11:23:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**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:** [March 3, 2016, 11:23am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/debugging-an-unreachable-error-when-connecting-to-openwrt/20759/1 "2016-03-03T11:23:17Z")

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Hi all,

I want to manage a machine running openwrt with ansible. First I got  
stuck just connecting to the machine, and I do not find the error:

> ansible -m setup 192.168.11.1  
> 192.168.11.1 | UNREACHABLE! =\> {  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"changed": false,  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"msg": "SSH Error: data could not be sent to the remote host. Make sure this host can be reached over ssh",  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"unreachable": true  
> }

I can ssh into the machine without errors with my ssh key loaded into  
ssh-agent.

I tried to ansible to the IP, to the FQDN and to the short hostname.  
No change, but each works with ssh (.ssh/config contains entries for  
IP, hostname and FQDN).

I added ansible\_port and ansible\_user to the host\_vars file for this  
machine.

I installed python on the machine.

I tried paramiko but got no further than a sftp error.

I deleted all lines for this host from my ~/.ssh/config file, but  
still unreachable.

Using ansible -vvvv shows lots of output, shows that remote port and  
user are configured but otherwise no

---

<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:** [March 4, 2016, 9:13pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/debugging-an-unreachable-error-when-connecting-to-openwrt/20759/2 "2016-03-04T21:13:45Z")

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Hi,

> I want to manage a machine running openwrt with ansible. First I got  
> stuck just connecting to the machine, and I do not find the error:

[...]

> Funny enough, using the raw module to call date kinda works:

This seems to be related to dropbear. When using openssh-server (with  
openssh-sftp-server installed) I can connect and get a warning about a  
missing python module.

Installing python rather than python-light seems to solve these issues...

Johannes