# \[WARNING\]: Error in vault password file loading (default) **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Developer\ **Created:** [March 19, 2018, 5:34am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/warning-error-in-vault-password-file-loading-default/27035 "2018-03-19T05:34:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Vino\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@Vino\_B](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Vino_B)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2018, 5:34am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/warning-error-in-vault-password-file-loading-default/27035/1 "2018-03-19T05:34:45Z")
Hi All, Request you help, after upgrade ansible to 2.6 -devel the password vault is not working as expected, and getting the below error, before the upgrade it was working fine without any issues. **ansible-playbook /home/ansible/playbooks/oscheck.yml --syntax-check** [WARNING]: Error in vault password file loading (default): A vault password must be specified to decrypt data ERROR! A vault password must be specified to decrypt data **ansible --version** ansible 2.6.0 config file = /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg configured module search path = [u’/home/ansible/.ansible/plugins/modules’, u’/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules’] ansible python module location = /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible executable location = /usr/bin/ansible python version = 2.7.13 (default, Jan 11 2017, 10:56:06) [GCC] **oscheck.ym** l ---
**Author:** ![Vino\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@Vino\_B](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Vino_B)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2018, 11:30am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/warning-error-in-vault-password-file-loading-default/27035/2 "2018-03-19T11:30:41Z")
Hi All, After analyzing further found that when we move the files “target.yml” and “target.pass” to the folder “/home/ansible/.ansible” then the WARNING disappears and get the below error , if these file’s “target.yml” and “target.pass” contain plain text then it works fine. so the entire vault functionality is not working as expected,basically not able to decrypt. “ERROR! Attempting to decrypt but no vault secrets found” **File under the Folder “/home/ansible/.ansible”** **File : target.yml** ansible\_user: ansible ansible\_ssh\_pass: ansible\_become\_pass: **File: target.pass** From, Vino.B ---
**Author:** ![alikins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@alikins](https://forum.ansible.com/u/alikins)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2018, 2:59pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/warning-error-in-vault-password-file-loading-default/27035/3 "2018-03-19T14:59:44Z")
responses inline ---
**Author:** ![Vino\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@Vino\_B](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Vino_B)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2018, 6:42pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/warning-error-in-vault-password-file-loading-default/27035/4 "2018-03-19T18:42:05Z")
Hi Adrian, Thank you, please correct me if I am wrong, The vault password file(target.pass) should not be empty and should not be encrypted. The file target.yml which contains the below details should we encrypted. ansible\_user: ansible ansible\_ssh\_pass: test ansible\_become\_pass: test The password used to encrypt the file target.yml “test” should me the same in the file target.pass. As we cannot use plain text in the file target.pass, we have to encrypt the string “test” using ansible-vault encrypt\_string and copy the output to the file target.pass. From, Vino.B ---
**Author:** ![alikins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@alikins](https://forum.ansible.com/u/alikins)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 5:57pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/warning-error-in-vault-password-file-loading-default/27035/5 "2018-03-22T17:57:55Z")
I’ll need output from the ansible-vault and ansible-playbook commands with the ‘-vvvvv’ verbosity option added to tell you much more. “Playbook get’s executed successfully with providing the vault password file nor the prompt for a vault password and both the file’s target.pass and target.yml are encrypted.” Not sure I’m able to parse that. Does that mean: - ‘ansible-vault --vault-password-file=target.pass --tags kernel /home/ansible/playbooks/oscheck.yml’ works? If target.pass is vault encrypted, how are you providing the vault password used to decrypt it? For the quoted example: **openssl rand -base64 2048 \> target.pass** **ansible-vault encrypt target.yml --vault-password-file=target.pass** target.pass is not encrypted (by vault or otherwise) (is there a step missing where target.pass is encrypted?)