Multiple and/or conditions in when wont work

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1

I am having issues with using multiple conditions in when to validate whether or not to run a task.

Basically I am using extrended variables within the ansible command to state what sort of updates I want to run like this:
ansible-playbook site.yml -i inventory --ask-vault -u (username)-e “security=true restart=true” -k -K

  • name: Update all packages
    yum:
    name: “"
    state: latest
    exclude: "kernel    ”
    when: security is not defined or kernel is not defined or specified_packages is not defined and ansible_os_family == “RedHat”

However I can not figure out a combination to get this conditional to run properly. Everytime I run it the playbook continues to run the task when I dont want it to. I already experimented with adding another variable to specify if I want to skip this task only but I would prefer it to automatically get skipped when I specify to run another type of update.

I’ve tried the following:

(security is not defined or kernel is not defined or specified_packages is not defined) and (ansible_os_family == “RedHat”)

(security is not defined or kernel is not defined or specified_packages is not defined) and ansible_os_family == “RedHat”

or even:

when: ansible_os_family == “RedHat”
when: security is not defined or kernel is not defined or specified_packages is not defined

2

I am having issues with using multiple conditions in when to validate
whether or not to run a task.

Basically I am using extrended variables within the ansible command to
state what sort of updates I want to run like this:
ansible-playbook site.yml -i inventory --ask-vault -u (username)-e
"security=true restart=true" -k -K

- name: Update all packages
   yum:
      name: "*"
      state: latest
      exclude: "kernel*"
   when: security is not defined or kernel is not defined or
specified_packages is not defined and ansible_os_family == "RedHat"

However I can not figure out a combination to get this conditional to run
properly. Everytime I run it the playbook continues to run the task when I
dont want it to.

When do you want the task to run?

3

Multiple AND/OR do work, are you sure your conditions are being met?

4

i want to run the task when ansible_os_family == “RedHat” (this works) AND if none of the following variables are set (security,kernel,specified_packages) through extended variables (-e)

5

Im posting my stack overflow question as it is much more clear:

Ask Question

6

Your last three posted have different explanation of what you are trying to achieve, but according to this post I think you are looking for this

when: not (security is defined or kernel is defined or specified_packages is defined) and ansible_os_family == "RedHat"

This only run on RedHat when none of the variables is set.

7

You could use the intersect filter from jinja2.

I am thinking about sth. like the following:

when: ansible_os_family == “RedHat” and not vars.keys() | intersect([security,kernel,specified_packages])

8

My bad I was working with many different solutions and combinations so I got confused. I tried tons of complicated ways … can’t believe such a simple one worked lol. I probably over complicated it but what you suggested works great!

when: not (security is defined or kernel is defined or
specified_packages is defined) and ansible_os_family == “RedHat”

Thanks!

9

This doesn’t work as if I put the second value (in this case kernel) it tries to check it throws an error saying security is undefined. I found that jinja2 templates dont seem to work in the when clause. I tried many jinja2 templates that should work in regular situations but they failed (e.g when: security|d(‘’) = ’ ’ …etc or even when: security | default(‘false’) = false). Kai’s response works the best although I found a workaround to use false/true flags.

10

The jinja2 template, does work in the when clause.
In fact, you dont even need the curly brakets.

My example gave you an error because i missed the quotes around the items. The items arent variables, these are strings. So you cant get an “is not defined” with that code!

The following code skips the task:

  • hosts: all

vars:
var1: True
security: Hello

tasks:

  • name: This is a test task
    debug:
    msg: Yo
    when: var1 and not vars.keys() | intersect([“security”,“kernel”,“specified_packages”])

This code runs it:

  • hosts: all

vars:
var1: True

tasks:

  • name: This is a test task
    debug:
    msg: Yo
    when: var1 and not vars.keys() | intersect([“security”,“kernel”,“specified_packages”])