# What does this Ansible SSH unreachable error mean? "ERROR! (25, 'Inappropriate ioctl for device')", "unreachable": true}

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/what-does-this-ansible-ssh-unreachable-error-mean-error-25-inappropriate-ioctl-for-device-unreachable-true/21084>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [April 7, 2016, 2:02am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/what-does-this-ansible-ssh-unreachable-error-mean-error-25-inappropriate-ioctl-for-device-unreachable-true/21084 "2016-04-07T02:02:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Max\_Fowler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f07891/32.png) [@Max\_Fowler](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Max_Fowler)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2016, 2:02am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/what-does-this-ansible-ssh-unreachable-error-mean-error-25-inappropriate-ioctl-for-device-unreachable-true/21084/1 "2016-04-07T02:02:07Z")

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I have a host (a rasberry pi connected to my macbook via an ethernet cable) which I am successfully able to connect to via SSH from terminal via the command ‘ssh [pi@169.254.0.2](mailto:pi@169.254.0.2)’, yet my Ansible playbook fails to connect to this host with the same IP address specified, and fails with the cryptic error ‘Inappropriate ioctl for device’.

I have successfully used Ansible to configure this pi elsewhere, via connecting to the pi through Wifi, but only since connecting to the Pi through ethernet do I get this ioctl error.

Here is a stack overflow question describing my issue in more detail:[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36465371/what-does-ansible-error-error-25-inappropriate-ioctl-for-device-unreac](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36465371/what-does-ansible-error-error-25-inappropriate-ioctl-for-device-unreac)

Thank you for any help, I am totally a loss at this error, and what could be different about the way Ansible connects to the host from the way I have been connecting via ssh from the terminal.

Best,  
Max