# rds module doesn't support/allow Boto config file?

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/rds-module-doesnt-support-allow-boto-config-file/21591>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** aws\
**Created:** [May 28, 2016, 2:18am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/rds-module-doesnt-support-allow-boto-config-file/21591 "2016-05-28T02:18:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Darren\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/59ef9b/32.png) [@Darren\_S](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Darren_S)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2016, 2:18am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/rds-module-doesnt-support-allow-boto-config-file/21591/1 "2016-05-28T02:18:02Z")

</div>

Attempting to provision an AWS RDS instance using  
[http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/rds\_module.html](http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/rds_module.html). The module indicates  
that it requires boto, which itself can read configuration data from a  
number of paths including ~/.boto [1]. However the module indicates  
that the 'region' parameter is required, or if not specified, the  
EC2\_REGION environment variable. Without providing the region in  
either of those settings, the play does indeed error out:

TASK [create database] \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*

fatal: [example.com -\> localhost]: FAILED! =\> {"changed": false,  
"failed": true, "msg": "Region not specified. Unable to determine  
region from EC2\_REGION."}

Is it intentional that the module does not support Boto's  
configuration file parameters? In this case, Boto is configured with  
appropriate settings:

# ~/.boto  
[Credentials]  
aws\_access\_key\_id = \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*  
aws\_secret\_access\_key = \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*

[Boto]  
ec2\_region\_name = us-west-2

It would be a duplication of config to have to also extract the region  
name out to a shell environment file. Can this module be allowed to  
support the dependent library's native configuration in the event that  
either region parameter is not explicitly set?

[1] [http://docs.pythonboto.org/en/latest/boto\_config\_tut.html](http://docs.pythonboto.org/en/latest/boto_config_tut.html)

Kind regards,

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![david.stelter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@david.stelter](https://forum.ansible.com/u/david.stelter)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2016, 6:14am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/rds-module-doesnt-support-allow-boto-config-file/21591/2 "2016-05-28T06:14:41Z")

</div>

I think there’s a swarm of errors around region handling in the AWS stuff, I encountered something similar/related in the S3 module today.