Found bug in "apt_rpm" module, fixed it. Not sure how to help.

Hello, this is my first post to the ansible community.
I’m a newby to Ansible, but a very experienced python developer.
Anyway, after installing the latest Ansible 2.2.2.0, I tried out a simple module call to verify if a RPM package existed on some RHEL 6/7 systems. Anyway, the module failed, with the error:

“cannot find /usr/bin/apt-get and/or /usr/bin/rpm”

My first curiosity was to figure out what python module they used to execute “rpm” or “apt-get”, and see what path it used (if any) and how to correct. Somebody else had a similar problem, and the answers coming back were focusing on the user’s PATH or SUDO configuration, but there was never a resolution.

(That post is here → https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/ansible-project/executable$20not$20found%7Csort:relevance/ansible-project/zl6l6i0bBMc/vFCNiEYq3-IJ

Anyway, I , decided to take a look at “apt_rpm.py” directly, and lo and behold, I think I found the problem. In the very beginning of the “main()” function, the author tries determine if either “apt-get” or “rpm” are available…and if so continue on, or FAIL if not. Makes sense? However, way the if conditional was written is kind of confusing, and I believe it exits with a FAIL if only the ‘apt-get’ is missing, which I encounter on a RHEL system. To make a long story short, I rewrote the if conditional to be a little clearer, and IT WORKS!.

Here’s what I did:

Replace:

153 if not os.path.exists(APT_PATH) or not os.path.exists(RPM_PATH):
154 module.fail_json(msg=“cannot find /usr/bin/apt-get and/or /usr/bin/rpm”)

With…
153 if (os.path.exists(APT_PATH) or os.path.exists(RPM_PATH)):
154 pass
155 else:
156 module.fail_json(msg=“cannot find /usr/bin/apt-get and/or /usr/bin/rpm”)

I believe this bug has existed from v1.5, and kind of surprised it hasn’t been found.
Let me know how I can either:

  1. Who or how should I get this to an existing Ansible developer to look at?
  2. Please direct me to how I can become an ansible developer and start writing high-quality code to help you’alls out. :slight_smile:

Thank You
Peter

Hi,

​To start contributing you can just create a pull request against our github repo : https://github.com/ansible/ansible

I recommend reading through developer information docs http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/dev_guide/index.html