# Parted plugin fails after first run

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/parted-plugin-fails-after-first-run/36074>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [December 6, 2021, 9:07am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parted-plugin-fails-after-first-run/36074 "2021-12-06T09:07:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Lucas\_Possamai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@Lucas\_Possamai](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Lucas_Possamai)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 9:07am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parted-plugin-fails-after-first-run/36074/1 "2021-12-06T09:07:40Z")

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Hi all.

I'm having issues with the parted plugin. It works when I run the playbook  
for the first time, but if I try to run again, it will fail.

I actually want this task to be run only once, but the run\_once parameter  
is not working either.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dulhaver](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/dulhaver/32/1061_2.png) [@dulhaver](https://forum.ansible.com/u/dulhaver)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 9:21am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parted-plugin-fails-after-first-run/36074/2 "2021-12-06T09:21:22Z")

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I have seen something similar with re-running LVM operations and remember they mentioned to add a **force: yes** option (I don’t recall the exact wording though) in oder the not fail on re-execution. Wondering whether something alike would help here too.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lucas\_Possamai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@Lucas\_Possamai](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Lucas_Possamai)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 9:50am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parted-plugin-fails-after-first-run/36074/3 "2021-12-06T09:50:35Z")

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Hmm that didn’t help.

This is working for me, but I think that’s ugly… there must be another way to achieve this:

- name: Check if {{ data\_volume }} is already mounted

shell: df | grep {{ data\_volume }} | wc -l  
with\_items: “{{ data\_volume }}”  
register: ebs\_checked

- name: Create a new ext4 primary partition for /data

run\_once: true  
community.general.parted:  
name: pg\_data  
device: “{{ data\_volume }}”  
number: 2  
state: present  
fs\_type: ext4  
when: “{{item.stdout}} == 0”  
with\_items: “{{ ebs\_checked.results }}”

- name: Create a ext4 filesystem on “{{ data\_volume }}” (/data)

run\_once: true  
community.general.filesystem:  
fstype: ext4  
dev: “{{ data\_volume }}”  
when: “{{item.stdout}} == 0”  
with\_items: “{{ ebs\_checked.results }}”

- name: Mount /data

ansible.posix.mount:  
path: /data  
src: “{{ data\_volume }}”  
fstype: ext4  
state: mounted  
opts: defaults

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![racke](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/racke/32/4767_2.png) [@racke](https://forum.ansible.com/u/racke)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 10:17am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parted-plugin-fails-after-first-run/36074/4 "2021-12-06T10:17:59Z")

</div>

> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\_\_  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I have seen something similar with re-running LVM operations and remember they mentioned to add a \*force: yes\* option (I don't recall the exact wording though) in oder the not fail on re-execution. Wondering whether something alike would help here too.
> 
> Hmm that didn't help.
> 
> This is working for me, but I think that's ugly.. there must be another way to achieve this:
> 
> - name: Check if {{ data\_volume }}is already mounted  
> shell: df | grep {{ data\_volume }}| wc -l  
> with\_items: "{{ data\_volume }}"  
> register: ebs\_checked

Hello Lucas,

it is more efficient and less fragile to check "ansible\_mounts" fact, e.g.

&nbsp;&nbsp;when: ansible\_mounts | selectattr('fstype', 'equalto', 'ext4') | selectattr('mount', 'equalto', data\_volume) | list | count \> 1

(not tested).

Regards  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Racke

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![utoddl](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/utoddl/32/249_2.png) [@utoddl](https://forum.ansible.com/u/utoddl)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 5:26pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parted-plugin-fails-after-first-run/36074/5 "2021-12-06T17:26:56Z")

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You’re specifying partition 2 w/o a size. On a blank disk (in my testing at least) this produces a partition 1. Subsequent calls to the first task fail because partition 1 consumes the entire disk, and partition 2 cannot be created. However, changing “number: 2” to “number: 1” in the first task allows subsequent calls to succeed. Can you explain why you’re using “2”, and how are subsequent tasks expected to associate / operate on that partition?

Also, it may be helpful if you tell us what value you have for data\_volume.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lucas\_Possamai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@Lucas\_Possamai](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Lucas_Possamai)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 7:59pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parted-plugin-fails-after-first-run/36074/6 "2021-12-06T19:59:45Z")

</div>

> You’re specifying partition 2 w/o a size. On a blank disk (in my testing at least) this produces a partition 1. Subsequent calls to the first task fail because partition 1 consumes the entire disk, and partition 2 cannot be created. However, changing “number: 2” to “number: 1” in the first task allows subsequent calls to succeed. Can you explain why you’re using “2”, and how are subsequent tasks expected to associate / operate on that partition?

There is only one partition in that disk. And TBH, I don’t know why I put “partition 2” there. I think it was a copy and paste. I’ll change the partition number from 2 to 1 and test again.

> Also, it may be helpful if you tell us what value you have for data\_volume.

data\_volume is /dev/nvme2n1  
pgsql\_volume is /dev/nvme1n1

Those are variables, and I need to manually change them since even by using aws\_volume\_attachment in terraform, it’s not guaranteed that the volume will have the same designation for every attachment. And I couldn’t find a way to check the disks by size.

Cheers,  
Lucas

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![utoddl](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/utoddl/32/249_2.png) [@utoddl](https://forum.ansible.com/u/utoddl)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 8:27pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parted-plugin-fails-after-first-run/36074/7 "2021-12-06T20:27:52Z")

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I was able to get your playbook to work repeatedly on an external thumdrive. It shows up as /dev/sda, so the full partition - after changing to “number: 1” is /dev/sda1. My significant changes are bolded below. Note that dev: and src: in the last two steps are a concatenation of data\_volume and number. For an nvme device like /dev/nvme2n1 you’d need to insert a “p” before the partition number: “{{ data\_volume }}p{{ number }}”.

- hosts: localhost  
vars:  
**data\_volume: /dev/sda**  
**number: 1**  
tasks:

- name: Read device information (always use unit when probing)  
**community.general.parted:**  
device: “{{ data\_volume }}”  
unit: MiB  
register: sdb\_info

- name: Add new partition “{{ data\_volume }}”  
run\_once: true  
**community.general.parted:**  
device: “{{ data\_volume }}”  
**number: “{{ number }}”**  
fs\_type: ext4  
state: present

- name: Create a ext4 filesystem on “{{ data\_volume }}” (/data)  
run\_once: true  
community.general.filesystem:  
fstype: ext4  
**dev: “{{ data\_volume }}{{ number }}”**

- name: Mount /data  
ansible.posix.mount:  
path: /data  
**src: “{{ data\_volume }}{{ number }}”**  
fstype: ext4  
state: mounted  
opts: defaults

If you do get all the nuances worked out, post back to let us know what you ended up with. Good luck.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lucas\_Possamai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@Lucas\_Possamai](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Lucas_Possamai)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 2:16am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parted-plugin-fails-after-first-run/36074/8 "2021-12-07T02:16:16Z")

</div>

Thanks for your reply.

I tried using your suggestions, but I get this error:  
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! =\> {“changed”: false, “err”: “Error: Partition(s) on /dev/nvme2n1 are being used.\n”, “msg”: “Error while running parted script: /usr/sbin/parted -s -m -a optimal /dev/nvme2n1 – unit KiB mklabel msdos mkpart primary ext4 0% 100%”, “out”: “”, “rc”: 1}

It works if I unmount the volume, though.

This is the code I’m using:

- name: Add new partition “{{ pgsql\_volume }}” (/pgsql)  
run\_once: true  
community.general.parted:  
device: “{{ data\_volume }}”  
number: “{{ number }}”  
fs\_type: ext4  
state: present  
when: prod and not awsbau and not slave

- name: Create a ext4 filesystem on “{{ pgsql\_volume }}” (/pgsql)  
run\_once: true  
community.general.filesystem:  
fstype: ext4  
dev: “{{ pgsql\_volume }}p{{ number }}”  
when: prod and not awsbau and not slave

- name: Unomunt /data  
ansible.posix.mount:  
path: /data  
state: unmounted

- name: Add new partition “{{ data\_volume }}” (/data)  
run\_once: true  
community.general.parted:  
device: “{{ data\_volume }}”  
number: “{{ number }}”  
fs\_type: ext4  
state: present

- name: Create a ext4 filesystem on “{{ data\_volume }}” (/data)  
run\_once: true  
community.general.filesystem:  
fstype: ext4  
dev: “{{ data\_volume }}p{{ number }}”

- name: Mount /pgsql  
ansible.posix.mount:  
path: /pgsql  
src: “{{ pgsql\_volume }}{{ number }}”  
fstype: ext4  
state: mounted  
opts: defaults

- name: Mount /data  
ansible.posix.mount:  
path: /data  
src: “{{ data\_volume }}{{ number }}”  
fstype: ext4  
state: mounted  
opts: defaults

Also I noticed that the "Read device information (always use unit when probing) " isn’t being used. So I removed it.

Lucas

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![utoddl](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/utoddl/32/249_2.png) [@utoddl](https://forum.ansible.com/u/utoddl)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 12:25pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parted-plugin-fails-after-first-run/36074/9 "2021-12-07T12:25:18Z")

</div>

> Also I noticed that the "Read device information (always use unit when probing) " isn’t being used. So I removed it.  
> That’s too bad, because its output is exactly what we need to know why the next bit is failing. It also contains the information you need to know whether the “Add new partition…” steps need to execute. But if we get those steps expressed idempotently it really shouldn’t matter. Would be informative to see the output of that for both data\_volume and pgsql\_volume. I’d also be interested to see what /etc/fstab entry/entries you’ve got for these devices.

I’m assuming the error you quoted is from either the “Add new partition “{{ pgsql\_volume }}” (/pgsql)” step or the “Add new partition “{{ data\_volume }}” (/data)” step, but I don’t know which. I understand the desire to keep posts brief, but leaving out step output headers, values of variables, etc. makes us have to guess or scroll back through the thread and piece it back together. In the mean time, something’s changed, etc. It could be that the one little breaking detail is something you’re writing off as insignificant — otherwise you would have fixed it already!

_[aside: I’ve been doing a lot of Ansible support in the last couple of weeks in forums like this, and nearly half the exchanges have been requests for information that was left out - presumably for my/our convenience - from prior posts.]_

At any rate, the “Add new partition…” steps are not behaving idempotently: the partition you are declaring already exists. There must be some way to express that so that the community.general.parted module doesn’t run “/usr/sbin/parted -s -m -a optimal /dev/nvme2n1 – unit KiB mklabel msdos mkpart primary ext4 0% 100%”, which we know is doomed to fail if there’s already a partition on /dev/nvme2n1. (Or is there? Could be a raw device?)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lucas\_Possamai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5fc32e/32.png) [@Lucas\_Possamai](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Lucas_Possamai)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 8:06pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parted-plugin-fails-after-first-run/36074/10 "2021-12-07T20:06:20Z")

</div>

> > Also I noticed that the "Read device information (always use unit when probing) " isn’t being used. So I removed it.  
> > That’s too bad, because its output is exactly what we need to know why the next bit is failing. It also contains the information you need to know whether the “Add new partition…” steps need to execute. But if we get those steps expressed idempotently it really shouldn’t matter. Would be informative to see the output of that for both data\_volume and pgsql\_volume. I’d also be interested to see what /etc/fstab entry/entries you’ve got for these devices.

Oh, sorry about that then. I didn’t realize you were going to need the output of those commands.

> I’m assuming the error you quoted is from either the “Add new partition “{{ pgsql\_volume }}” (/pgsql)” step or the “Add new partition “{{ data\_volume }}” (/data)” step, but I don’t know which. I understand the desire to keep posts brief, but leaving out step output headers, values of variables, etc. makes us have to guess or scroll back through the thread and piece it back together. In the mean time, something’s changed, etc. It could be that the one little breaking detail is something you’re writing off as insignificant — otherwise you would have fixed it already!
> 
> _[aside: I’ve been doing a lot of Ansible support in the last couple of weeks in forums like this, and nearly half the exchanges have been requests for information that was left out - presumably for my/our convenience - from prior posts.]_
> 
> At any rate, the “Add new partition…” steps are not behaving idempotently: the partition you are declaring already exists. There must be some way to express that so that the community.general.parted module doesn’t run “/usr/sbin/parted -s -m -a optimal /dev/nvme2n1 – unit KiB mklabel msdos mkpart primary ext4 0% 100%”, which we know is doomed to fail if there’s already a partition on /dev/nvme2n1. (Or is there? Could be a raw device?)

Well, TBH it’s working fine now. I created a bunch of files in the /data and /pgsql directories and re-run the Ansible playbook. The idea here was to know if Ansible would completely destroy the partitions and re-create them, or if it would understand the partitions are already there and skip or signal “ok”.

I executed the playbook a couple of times and the files remained in their directories. Which is really good.  
The only different thing I had to do was to add those unmount commands. The code I sent in my previous email is the entire bit.

Thank you for your help Todd, I’m happy with the result.

Cheers,  
Lucas