Run command on the Ansible host

Question

Is it possible to run commands on the Ansible controller node?

My scenario is that I want to take a checkout from a git server that is hosted internally (and isn't accessible outside the company firewall). Then I want to upload the checkout (tarballed) to the production server (hosted externally).

At the moment, I'm looking at running a script that does the checkout, tarballs it, and then runs the deployment script - but if I could integrate this into Ansible that would be preferable.

Answer 1

Yes, you can run commands on the Ansible host. You can specify that all tasks in a play run on the Ansible host, or you can mark individual tasks to run on the Ansible host.

If you want to run an entire play on the Ansible host, then specify hosts: 127.0.0.1 and connection:local in the play, for example:

- name: A play that runs entirely on the Ansible host
  hosts: 127.0.0.1
  connection: local
  tasks:
  - name: check out a git repository
    git: 
      repo: git://foosball.example.org/path/to/repo.git
      dest: /local/path

See Local Playbooks in the Ansible documentation for more details.

If you just want to run a single task on your Ansible host, you can use local_action to specify that a task should be run locally. For example:

- name: An example playbook
  hosts: webservers
  tasks:
    - name: Another task here
      meta: noop
    - name: check out a git repository
      local_action: 
        module: git
        repo: git://foosball.example.org/path/to/repo.git 
        dest: /local/path

See "Controlling where tasks run: delegation and local actions" in the Ansible documentation for more details.

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You can avoid having to type connection: local in your play by adding this to your inventory:

localhost ansible_connection=local

(Here you'd use "localhost" instead of "127.0.0.1" to refer to the play).

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In newer versions of Ansible, you no longer need to add the above line to your inventory, Ansible assumes it's already there.