Playbook help - syntax

Archives Ansible Developer
1

I am working on a Ansible file that will update our Windows boxes instead of using SCCM. I keep getting an error. Here is my playbook.

---
- hosts: Windows
  connection: winrm
  tasks:
    - name: Install Critical Updates
      win_updates:
        category_names:
          - CriticalUpdates
        log_path= "c:/temp/ansible_wu.txt"
    - name: Reboot Servers
      raw: shutdown.exe /r /t 10  
The error is:ERROR! Syntax Error while loading YAML.

The error appears to have been in '/home/bud/ansible/WinUpdate.yml': line 13, column 5, but may
be elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.

The offending line appears to be:

- name: Restart machine
^ here
2

This is a question for the ansible-project list rather than ansible-devel.

The playbook you’ve posted doesn’t appear complete, as the error message relates to a task name that isn’t in the below playbook (this is feedback so that you can have better luck in ansible-project)

3

Yes, Will is right, this is really a question for ansible-project.

However, it looks to me like you have an = where there should be a : in

log_path= "c:/temp/ansible_wu.txt"

should be

log_path: “C:/temp/ansible_wu.txt”

Single line ansible module calls can use the key=value key=value syntax, but when you are using the multi-line yaml style syntax it needs to be key: value

yamllint.com or a yaml-aware text editor can be a help when you are getting used to writing playbooks.

All the best,

Jon

4

Single line ansible module calls can use the key=value key=value syntax,
but when you are using the multi-line yaml style syntax it needs to be key:
value

This statement is not correct.

yamllint.com or a yaml-aware text editor can be a help when you are getting
used to writing playbooks.

Code like this work
- name: Update the Apache config
   copy: >
     src=httpd.conf
     dest=/etc/httpd/httpd.conf

Even dropping the bigger than and it works, also yamllint.com says it is valid.

More about multiline here
https://support.ansible.com/hc/en-us/articles/201957837-How-do-I-split-an-action-into-a-multi-line-format-

5

Kai,

Thanks for this, I didn’t know that should make converting ad hoc ansible command into playbook style entries easier.
Stylistically I wouldn’t want to mix key: value and key=value though as in the example above.

Jon