# Using group module; "Failed to find required executable groupadd"

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/using-group-module-failed-to-find-required-executable-groupadd/16751>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** ubuntu\
**Created:** [November 11, 2014, 7:40pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/using-group-module-failed-to-find-required-executable-groupadd/16751 "2014-11-11T19:40:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Joshua\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6de8d8/32.png) [@Joshua\_Burke](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Joshua_Burke)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 7:40pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/using-group-module-failed-to-find-required-executable-groupadd/16751/1 "2014-11-11T19:40:59Z")

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Hello,

While attempting to provision a Digital Ocean virtual server my playbook needs to create two groups:

- sudousers
- sshusers

Creation of the virtual server is successful however creating the groups fails with the message:

> msg: Failed to find required executable groupadd

The OS is Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, freshly provisioned.

Sending the which groupadd command after SSH to the server yeilds:

> which groupadd  
> /usr/sbin/groupadd

Sending the command groupadd results in a help page, so the executable is definitely there.

Ansible versions:

- ansible 1.7.1
- ansible-playbook 1.7.1

Any ideas what I may be doing wrong here?

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**Author:** ![Joshua\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6de8d8/32.png) [@Joshua\_Burke](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Joshua_Burke)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2014, 6:55pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/using-group-module-failed-to-find-required-executable-groupadd/16751/2 "2014-11-12T18:55:59Z")

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Hello All,

I found that the problem was my use of the “-c local” flag in my CLI invocation of the playbook.  
Additionally I upgraded from Ansible version 1.7.1 to version 1.7.2

Originally the command that failed was:

**ansible-playbook -v -c local -i localhost someplaybook.yml**

After changing the command to  
**ansible-playbook -v -i localhost someplaybook.yml**

The playbook ran as expected.

Just wanted to post a solution for everyone, in case of future similar problems.

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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:** [November 17, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/using-group-module-failed-to-find-required-executable-groupadd/16751/3 "2014-11-17T21:25:30Z")

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Yes, -c local will force every host in your playbook to run locally. It’s good for a simple playbook targetting localhost, but you shouldn’t do it in general with playbooks targetting your whole infra.

Glad you figured it out!