Using remote_user for a single task in a play

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1

I’m guessing this isn’t possible, but I might have been looking at it too long at this point to know if I’m missing something…

I have a playbook with a role in which one task has a remote_user and a delegate_to option set. That task has to run for each host on the delegate_to server which has a different ssh_user and password. Using ssh-keys or the same password as the ansible_ssh_user, it works okay, however, without ssh keys or the same password, it will fail.

For some people that will be executing this play, they will not be able to use ssh_keys and their passwords are different from the inventory and the delegate_to host. I could prompt for the remote_user and password on play run, however, I have not figured out how to set the password for the single task.

Here is an example. Is there a way to specify the password for jdoe? (note syntax and spacing may be off as I just typed this out)

  • name: Sample play
    hosts: all

roles:

  • myRole

tasks:

debug:
msg: “End of play”

In the role/myRole/tasks/main.yml

  • include: myfacts.yml

  • name: Some task
    command: test 0
    changed_when: false

  • name: Problem task
    remote_user: jdoe
    command: “shell command”

delegate_to: ###.###.###.###

  • name: Some other task
    command: “test -f file.txt”
    register: myOutput
    changed_when: false
2

remote_user is usable, but you need to know about precedence, it will
only work if you did NOT have an override
(ansible_user/ansible_ssh_user override it).
It is normally used to change the 'default' remote_user or the one set
in config/play/block/role containing the task.

To set a different remote user when using the variable overrides, just
set the variable for the task:

- name: Problem task
  command: "shell command"
  delegate_to: ###.###.###.###
  vars:
     ansible_ssh_user: jdoe

The vars override the keywords, but the vars are still vars and normal
variable precedence still applies.

3

Okay, given that, i should be able to set the ansible_ssh_pass there as well. Thanks, I figured I was overlooking something obvious!