How to make ansible read a json file on remote host?

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1

I following the technique suggested in how to read json file using ansible suggestion in Stackoverflow, and I do this

`

  • set_fact:
    version_file: “{{ lookup(‘file’,‘/opt/gitlab/version-manifest.json’) | from_json }}”
    installed_version: version_file.build_version

`

However I get the error

`
TASK [gitlab-ce : set_fact] ****************************************************
[WARNING]: Unable to find ‘/opt/gitlab/version-manifest.json’ in expected
paths.

fatal: [host.domain.com]: FAILED! => {“failed”: true, “msg”: “An unhandled exception occurred while running the lookup plugin ‘file’. Error was a <class ‘ansible.errors.AnsibleError’>, original message: could not locate file in lookup: /opt/gitlab/version-manifest.json”}
to retry, use: --limit @/var/tmp/jenkins/team_SCSCM/gitlab-ce/install-gitlab-ce/ansible-playbooks/gitlab-ce.retry

PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
rtp-scm-lnx26.cisco.com : ok=5 changed=0 unreachable=0
`

The file is there on the remote machine. What gives?

2

lookups only execute on the local ansible controller.

You will need to use something such as the slurp module to fetch the contents of the file.

  • slurp:
    path: /opt/gitlab/version-manifest.json
    register: version_file

  • set_fact:
    installed_version: “{{ (version_file.content|b64decode|from_json).build_version }}”

3

I didn’t know that about lookups. The code you provided worked! Thanks!