Using local_action with shell module can't deal with the command line arugment.

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1

I want to echo something to a file using local_action and shell module. When I use echo -e, ansible will treat -e as string to print rather than a command line argument. See below:

$ cat t.yaml
- hosts: localhost
  remote_user: root
  gather_facts: False
  tasks:
    - name: test
      local_action: shell echo -e abc


$ ansible-playbook -vv t.yaml

PLAY [localhost] **************************************************************

TASK: [test] ******************************************************************
<127.0.0.1> REMOTE_MODULE command echo -e abc #USE_SHELL
changed: [localhost -> 127.0.0.1] => {"changed": true, "cmd": "echo -e abc", "delta": "0:00:00.006123", "end": "2015-09-17 11:04:00.381722", "rc": 0, "start": "2015-09-17 11:04:00.375599", "stderr": "", "stdout": "-e abc", "warnings": []}

PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=1    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0

The stdout filed shows that ansible echo a string that is -e abc which include the command line argument -e. I also test it without local_action option in the playbook. Its behavior is normal as I expected.

$ cat t.yaml
- hosts: localhost
  remote_user: root
  gather_facts: False
  tasks:
    - name: test
      shell:  echo -e abc


$ ansible-playbook -vv t.yaml

PLAY [localhost] **************************************************************

TASK: [test] ******************************************************************
<localhost> REMOTE_MODULE command echo -e abc #USE_SHELL
changed: [localhost] => {"changed": true, "cmd": "echo -e abc", "delta": "0:00:00.001969", "end": "2015-09-17 03:06:25.842056", "rc": 0, "start": "2015-09-17 03:06:25.840087", "stderr": "", "stdout": "abc", "warnings": []}

PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=1    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0

This time the stdout does not include the -e argument.

Is there something else I need to do when use local_action and shell module to execute command with argument?

2

The problem is likely due to /bin/sh being something like dash which doesn’t support some arguments. You might have to specify an executable= for /bin/bash or similar