# ERROR! Invalid shell type specified (bash), or the plugin for that shell type is missing.

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/error-invalid-shell-type-specified-bash-or-the-plugin-for-that-shell-type-is-missing/18570>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [June 23, 2015, 7:06am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/error-invalid-shell-type-specified-bash-or-the-plugin-for-that-shell-type-is-missing/18570 "2015-06-23T07:06:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Nico\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/46a35a/32.png) [@Nico\_K](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Nico_K)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 7:06am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/error-invalid-shell-type-specified-bash-or-the-plugin-for-that-shell-type-is-missing/18570/1 "2015-06-23T07:06:15Z")

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Hi,

To ensure that all our playbooks continue running on the upcoming Ansible 2.0, I decided to give it a test run.  
Did a clean checkout in a new tree and attempted to run my playbooks, sadly I immediately run into an error:

TASK [ec2-group : ec2-group : include] \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*  
fatal: [xxxx]: FAILED! =\> {“msg”: “ERROR! Invalid shell type specified (bash), or the plugin for that shell type is missing.”, “failed”: true}

Contents of this role:

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**Author:** ![Nico\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/46a35a/32.png) [@Nico\_K](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Nico_K)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 2015, 9:06pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/error-invalid-shell-type-specified-bash-or-the-plugin-for-that-shell-type-is-missing/18570/2 "2015-06-23T21:06:36Z")

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My ansible.cfg has executable set to ‘/bin/bash’.

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**Author:** ![Brian\_Coca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@Brian\_Coca](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Coca)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2015, 4:38am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/error-invalid-shell-type-specified-bash-or-the-plugin-for-that-shell-type-is-missing/18570/3 "2015-06-26T04:38:58Z")

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Try this as a workaround, set ansible\_shell\_type=sh for all the  
hosts, if that works I'm pretty sure I can solve the issue.

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**Author:** ![Nico\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/46a35a/32.png) [@Nico\_K](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Nico_K)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2015, 6:12am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/error-invalid-shell-type-specified-bash-or-the-plugin-for-that-shell-type-is-missing/18570/4 "2015-06-27T06:12:29Z")

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I should have been more thorough in my previous reply, when I mentioned it I was trying to point out that was causing the problem.  
Disabling the option so it defaults to sh or explicitly specifying sh makes the problem go away.

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**Author:** ![Brian\_Coca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@Brian\_Coca](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Coca)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 4:35am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/error-invalid-shell-type-specified-bash-or-the-plugin-for-that-shell-type-is-missing/18570/5 "2015-06-30T04:35:49Z")

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ok, so it seems we just need to make sure when we have bash as the  
executable to set the shell type to sh

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**Author:** ![Aneesh\_Joseph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5fc32e/32.png) [@Aneesh\_Joseph](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Aneesh_Joseph)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 7:39am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/error-invalid-shell-type-specified-bash-or-the-plugin-for-that-shell-type-is-missing/18570/6 "2016-02-04T07:39:19Z")

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I’m also facing the same issue, if I set ansible\_shell\_type=sh when I use executable=/bin/bash, it works.