# problems with variables being passed to a role **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [June 28, 2013, 3:19pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/problems-with-variables-being-passed-to-a-role/13035 "2013-06-28T15:19:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Tang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac91a4/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Tang](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Jimmy_Tang)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2013, 3:19pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/problems-with-variables-being-passed-to-a-role/13035/1 "2013-06-28T15:19:05Z")
Hi All I’m getting an error like this… TASK: [create user ‘{{opennebula\_db\_user}}’ with password ‘{{opennebula\_db\_pass}}’ for ‘{{opennebula\_db}}’ and grant all priveleges] \*\*\* failed: [192.168.206.110] =\> {“failed”: true, “item”: “”, “parsed”: false} invalid output was: Traceback (most recent call last): File “/root/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1372432356.33-79822485449444/mysql\_user”, line 1304, in main() File “/root/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1372432356.33-79822485449444/mysql\_user”, line 383, in main changed = user\_add(cursor, user, host, password, priv) File “/root/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1372432356.33-79822485449444/mysql\_user”, line 133, in user\_add cursor.execute(“CREATE USER %s@%s IDENTIFIED BY %s”, (user,host,password)) File “/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/MySQLdb/cursors.py”, line 174, in execute self.errorhandler(self, exc, value) File “/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/MySQLdb/connections.py”, line 36, in defaulterrorhandler raise errorclass, errorvalue \_mysql\_exceptions.OperationalError: (1470, “String ‘{{opennebula\_db\_user}}’ is too long for user name (should be no longer than 16)”) FATAL: all hosts have already failed – aborting PLAY RECAP \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* to retry, use: --limit @/var/tmp/ansible/site-vagrant.retry 192.168.206.110 : ok=32 changed=27 unreachable=0 failed=1 The task is ```auto # usernames and passwords should be included from a file outside of this git-repo, for now this is developmental. - name: create user '{{opennebula_db_user}}' with password '{{opennebula_db_pass}}' for '{{opennebula_db}}' and grant all priveleges action: mysql_user state=present name={{opennebula_db_user}} password={{opennebula_db_pass}} priv={{opennebula_db}}.*:ALL oddly it happens in a vagrant VM but it doesnt happen on my production system. The playbook can be found here... [https://github.com/jcftang/ansible-opennebula/blob/master/site-vagrant.yml](https://github.com/jcftang/ansible-opennebula/blob/master/site-vagrant.yml) You can test it (assuming you have vagrant) by git clone [https://github.com/jcftang/ansible-opennebula.git](https://github.com/jcftang/ansible-opennebula.git) cd ansible-opennebula cd hacking vagrant up source env-setup cd .. ansible-playbook site-vagrant.yml the production version of the playbook is site.yml which does the correct thing with variables being passwd to the mysql_user module. So I'm not sure why the jinja2 templates aren't being evaluation. Any suggestions on debugging variables would be appreciated. Jimmy, ``` ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2013, 3:27pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/problems-with-variables-being-passed-to-a-role/13035/2 "2013-06-28T15:27:57Z")
So it’s a little unfair to ask us to use vagrant to duplicate and test your configuration, rather than boiling things down to a more basic example. It looks like the only problem you have here is the variable isn’t being resolved. It would help if you tell us where this is being defined but I suspect what is happening is in your vagrant setup your inventory file isn’t alongside your group\_vars or something like that, so it’s not being loaded. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Tang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac91a4/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Tang](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Jimmy_Tang)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2013, 3:31pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/problems-with-variables-being-passed-to-a-role/13035/3 "2013-06-28T15:31:16Z")
I’m defining the variable in “group\_vars/all” the inventory file doesn’t have the relevent variable in there, but thats a good point about the inventory file not being next to the group\_vars file. I wouldn’t have expected it to be a problem. I can try moving my inventory file next to the group\_vars file and see how it goes… ---
**Author:** ![Lorin\_Hochstein1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce73a5/32.png) [@Lorin\_Hochstein1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Lorin_Hochstein1)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2013, 3:44pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/problems-with-variables-being-passed-to-a-role/13035/4 "2013-06-28T15:44:40Z")
Jimmy: If you’re running off of the devel branch, I recommend you add the following line to your ansible.cfg file: error\_on\_undefined\_vars = True This will give you a more meaningful error message if a variable isn’t defined. Lorin ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Tang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac91a4/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Tang](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Jimmy_Tang)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2013, 3:45pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/problems-with-variables-being-passed-to-a-role/13035/5 "2013-06-28T15:45:16Z")
It was a problem with the inventory file not being next to the group\_vars directory. I would have though it would have loaded up the group\_vars directory of variables if it was sat next to my playbooks instead of my inventory file. Is by design that the inventory file must site next to the group\_vars directory for everything to be evaluated correctly? ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Tang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ac91a4/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Tang](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Jimmy_Tang)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2013, 3:46pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/problems-with-variables-being-passed-to-a-role/13035/6 "2013-06-28T15:46:20Z")
Ah neato, this is going into my installation wide ansible config. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan2](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan2)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/problems-with-variables-being-passed-to-a-role/13035/7 "2013-06-28T16:28:13Z")
Yeah, it’s supposed to work next to your top level playbooks, but I need to confirm that’s also operational. (If playbooks are in different directories, it won’t be able to find them that way)