ssh works for first few tasks then fails (on different tasks each attempt)

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1

It worked at ansible v1.5, now I have the occasional issue below with the latest version 1.7.2. Manually sshing never has any issues.

$ ansible-playbook -s -i ./inventoryfile plays.yml -vvvv

PLAY [webserver] **************************************************************

GATHERING FACTS ***************************************************************
ok: [webserver]

TASK: [webserver | Install nginx] *********************************************
ok: [webserver] => {“changed”: false}

TASK: [webserver | start nginx] ***********************************************
ok: [webserver] => {“changed”: false, “enabled”: true, “name”: “nginx”, “state”: “started”}

TASK: [webserver | configure default webpage for nginx] ***********************
ESTABLISH CONNECTION FOR USER: ubuntu
EXEC [‘ssh’, ‘-C’, ‘-tt’, ‘-vvv’, ‘-o’, ‘UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null’, ‘-o’, ‘CheckHostIP=no’, ‘-o’, ‘StrictHostKeyChecking=no’, ‘-i’, ‘/home/ubuntu/.ssh/mykey’, ‘-o’, ‘KbdInteractiveAuthentication=no’, ‘-o’, ‘PreferredAuthentications=gssapi-with-mic,gssapi-keyex,hostbased,publickey’, ‘-o’, ‘PasswordAuthentication=no’, ‘-o’, ‘ConnectTimeout=10’, u’HOSTNAME’, u’/bin/sh -c 'sudo -k && sudo -H -S -p “[sudo via ansible, key=byvvbhgjlxzbdlcslyfnckefapqkxjpm] password: " -u root /bin/sh -c '”'“'echo SUDO-SUCCESS-byvvbhgjlxzbdlcslyfnckefapqkxjpm; rc=0; [ -r “/usr/share/nginx/www/index.html” ] || rc=2; [ -f “/usr/share/nginx/www/index.html” ] || rc=1; [ -d “/usr/share/nginx/www/index.html” ] && echo 3 && exit 0; (/usr/bin/md5sum /usr/share/nginx/www/index.html 2>/dev/null) || (/sbin/md5sum -q /usr/share/nginx/www/index.html 2>/dev/null) || (/usr/bin/digest -a md5 /usr/share/nginx/www/index.html 2>/dev/null) || (/sbin/md5 -q /usr/share/nginx/www/index.html 2>/dev/null) || (/usr/bin/md5 -n /usr/share/nginx/www/index.html 2>/dev/null) || (/bin/md5 -q /usr/share/nginx/www/index.html 2>/dev/null) || (/usr/bin/csum -h MD5 /usr/share/nginx/www/index.html 2>/dev/null) || (/bin/csum -h MD5 /usr/share/nginx/www/index.html 2>/dev/null) || (echo “${rc} /usr/share/nginx/www/index.html”)'”'"''‘]
EXEC [‘ssh’, ‘-C’, ‘-tt’, ‘-vvv’, ‘-o’, ‘UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null’, ‘-o’, ‘CheckHostIP=no’, ‘-o’, ‘StrictHostKeyChecking=no’, ‘-i’, ‘/home/ubuntu/.ssh/mykey’, ‘-o’, ‘KbdInteractiveAuthentication=no’, ‘-o’, ‘PreferredAuthentications=gssapi-with-mic,gssapi-keyex,hostbased,publickey’, ‘-o’, ‘PasswordAuthentication=no’, ‘-o’, ‘ConnectTimeout=10’, u’HOSTNAME’, “/bin/sh -c ‘mkdir -p $HOME/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1416786433.51-62781121556067 && chmod a+rx $HOME/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1416786433.51-62781121556067 && echo $HOME/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1416786433.51-62781121556067’”]
fatal: [webserver] => SSH encountered an unknown error. The output was:
OpenSSH_6.6.1, OpenSSL 1.0.1f 6 Jan 2014
debug1: Reading configuration data /home/ubuntu/.ssh/config
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 19: Applying options for *
debug2: ssh_connect: needpriv 0
debug1: Connecting to HOSTNAME [HOSTNAME] port 22.
debug2: fd 3 setting O_NONBLOCK
debug1: connect to address HOSTNAME port 22: Connection refused
ssh: connect to host HOSTNAME port 22: Connection refused

FATAL: all hosts have already failed – aborting

PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
to retry, use: --limit @/home/ubuntu/webserver.retry

webserver : ok=3 changed=0 unreachable=1 failed=0

2

Hmm, that’s interesting - possibly a network issue of some kind related to a router being overwhelmed or something?

3

I am connecting from a c9.io dev environment to a google compute
server. This morning it happened much less frequently, so I believe
you are correct. I was also able to verify it happens even when using
ssh on the command line, so definitely environmental and not OpenSSH
or Ansible specific.

-David