# Problems running playbook as root when ansible\_ssh\_user specified

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/problems-running-playbook-as-root-when-ansible-ssh-user-specified/15358>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [May 28, 2014, 7:54pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/problems-running-playbook-as-root-when-ansible-ssh-user-specified/15358 "2014-05-28T19:54:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Humberto\_Camacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9de0a6/32.png) [@Humberto\_Camacho](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Humberto_Camacho)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2014, 7:54pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/problems-running-playbook-as-root-when-ansible-ssh-user-specified/15358/1 "2014-05-28T19:54:23Z")

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Hello,

I have been searching a couple of days off and on.

I am using ansible 1.7 and in the process of creating a playbook to check the kernel version and if it is lower than X check if python-simplejson is installed. If it is not then install the package.

Below is a sample of my simple playbook.

`

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**Author:** ![James\_Cammarata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7c8e57/32.png) [@James\_Cammarata](https://forum.ansible.com/u/James_Cammarata)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2014, 2:17pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/problems-running-playbook-as-root-when-ansible-ssh-user-specified/15358/2 "2014-05-29T14:17:12Z")

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It appears from that output that your userB is failing to login at all to that system, so it’s never getting to the su step (which occurs after login). I would check your /var/log/secure or /var/log/auth.log (depending on your distro) to see what the error may be.