# setting remote\_user at top level of playbook has no effect on tasks!?

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/setting-remote-user-at-top-level-of-playbook-has-no-effect-on-tasks/14635>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [February 22, 2014, 12:21pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/setting-remote-user-at-top-level-of-playbook-has-no-effect-on-tasks/14635 "2014-02-22T12:21:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![MidGe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/59ef9b/32.png) [@MidGe](https://forum.ansible.com/u/MidGe)\
**Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 12:21pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/setting-remote-user-at-top-level-of-playbook-has-no-effect-on-tasks/14635/1 "2014-02-22T12:21:40Z")

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There is something I do not understand about remote\_user.

When I set a remote\_user at the top level of a playbook, when it comes to tasks, it seems to use my user name on the invoking machine (there is a similarly named user on the target) to execute the task unless I also specify the desired remote\_user at the task level. Is that the expected behaviour? If so, what is the use of setting remote\_user at the top level? Is it simply to log in?

Thanks for any clarifications. BTW I use the latest git cloned version of Ansible and my target is a Debian 7 server.

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**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan1)\
**Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 7:34pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/setting-remote-user-at-top-level-of-playbook-has-no-effect-on-tasks/14635/2 "2014-02-24T19:34:44Z")

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Can you show me an example playbook and output that illustrates this problem? (Possibly suggest running with -vvv to show the users being used in each step).

Thanks!