Role Dependency Not Being Executed

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1

Hi I have run into an issue where I’m not sure if it’s a bug in Ansible or just my lack of understand how roles are activated. Using Ansible 1.7.2, I have a playbook defined as such:

app/site.yml
app/roles/core/tasks/main.yml
app/roles/app-common/tasks/main.yml
app/roles/app-compA/meta/main.yml → contains a dependency on app-common

app/roles/app-compA/tasks/main.yml
app/roles/app-compB/meta/main.yml → contains a dependency on app-common

app/roles/app-compB/tasks/main.yml

Where site.yml activates roles like such:

  • hosts: all
    vars:
    home: /usr/local/app
    release: “{{ lookup(‘env’,‘RELEASE’) }}”
    group: “{{ lookup(‘env’,‘GROUP’) }}”

roles:

  • core

Component Specific Stuff

  • { role: app-compA, when: group== ‘compA’ }

  • { role: app-compB, when: group== ‘compB’ }

When I run the playbook like so:
export GROUP=compA
ansible-playbook site.yml -c local

The roles core, app-common & app-compA execute like expected.

However when I run the playbook like so:
export GROUP=compB
ansible-playbook site.yml -c local

Only the roles core and app-compB are executed and the app-common role is not executed. Shouldn’t the app-common role also be executed in this case? Is this a bug or have I mis-understood how roles are executed when role dependencies exists? My intent was to minimize the duplication of the tasks defined in app-common that are required by the app-compA & app-compB roles, so if there is another way to do this I’m all ears.

Thanks

2

Hard to see with the way it’s written above, do you perhaps have a bare-minimum repo to share?

3

Here you go.

https://github.com/jmal98/ansible-role-dep-example

My test env:

root@01e437db9a4c:/role-execution# ansible --version
ansible 1.7.2

root@01e437db9a4c:/role-execution# export GROUP=compA
root@01e437db9a4c:/role-execution# ansible-playbook site.yml -c local

PLAY [all] ********************************************************************

GATHERING FACTS ***************************************************************
ok: [127.0.0.1]

TASK: [core | Do some common work] ********************************************
ok: [127.0.0.1] => {
“msg”: “Did some common work.”
}

TASK: [app-common | Do some app-common work] **********************************
ok: [127.0.0.1] => {
“msg”: “Did some app-common work.”
}

TASK: [app-compA | Do some app-compA work] ************************************
ok: [127.0.0.1] => {
“msg”: “Did some app-compA work.”
}

TASK: [app-compB | Do some app-compB work] ************************************
skipping: [127.0.0.1]

PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
127.0.0.1 : ok=4 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0

root@01e437db9a4c:/role-execution# export GROUP=compB
root@01e437db9a4c:/role-execution# ansible-playbook site.yml -c local

PLAY [all] ********************************************************************

GATHERING FACTS ***************************************************************
ok: [127.0.0.1]

TASK: [core | Do some common work] ********************************************
ok: [127.0.0.1] => {
“msg”: “Did some common work.”
}

TASK: [app-common | Do some app-common work] **********************************
skipping: [127.0.0.1]

TASK: [app-compA | Do some app-compA work] ************************************
skipping: [127.0.0.1]

TASK: [app-compB | Do some app-compB work] ************************************
ok: [127.0.0.1] => {
“msg”: “Did some app-compB work.”
}

PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
127.0.0.1 : ok=3 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0

4

Hi Jamal,

We actually have an open issue for this currently: https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/9292. For now the work-around is to avoid the “diamond” pattern for roles, where the dependent roles with multiple parents use conditionals or tags.

Thanks!

5

Ok.

Thanks

6

Is it possible to use multiple conditions to activate a role?

e.g.)

  • { role: app-compA, when: group== ‘compA’ or group== ‘compB’ }
7

It should, yes. I just tested in your sample repo -- removing the
dependencies for compA and compB and then adding a new role for
app-common:

- { role: app-common, when: group == 'compA' or group == 'compB' }

Worked as I expected; app-common was run when GROUP was either compA
or compB but was skipped for other values of GROUP.

-Toshio

8

Yeah, I realized that I could try it shortly after firing off this email.

Thanks