Ansible expect module doesn't respond to password prompt

Question

I am trying to create a password to openvpn user using Ansible. I am using the expect module, but it does not work.

The next is the task I am trying to execute.

- name: Crear contraseña
  expect:
    command: passwd openvpn
    responses:
      Question:
        - (?i)Introduzca la nueva contraseña de UNIX: "a1245"
        - (?i)Introduzca la nueva contraseña de UNIX: "a1245"

The error is the next:

TASK [instalarVPN : Crear contraseña] ******************************************
fatal: [172.16.8.231]: FAILED! => {"changed": true, "cmd": "passwd openvpn", "delta": "0:00:30.108342", "end": "2016-09-14 10:13:07.370289", "failed": true, "rc": 10, "start": "2016-09-14 10:12:37.261947", "stdout": "Introduzca la nueva contraseña de UNIX: ", "stdout_lines": ["Introduzca la nueva contraseña de UNIX: "]}

If I use:

- name: Crear contraseña
  expect:
    command: passwd openvpn
    responses:
      (?i)Introduzca la nueva contraseña de UNIX: "a1245"
      (?i)Introduzca la nueva contraseña de UNIX: "a1245"

I have the next error:

fatal: [172.16.8.231]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "failed": true, "module_stderr": "", "module_stdout": "\r\nTraceback (most recent call last):\r\n  File \"/tmp/ansible_98VaZx/ansible_module_expect.py\", line 230, in <module>\r\n    main()\r\n  File \"/tmp/ansible_98VaZx/ansible_module_expect.py\", line 151, in main\r\n    events[key.decode()] = response\r\nUnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 32: ordinal not in range(128)\r\n", "msg": "MODULE FAILURE", "parsed": false}

Answer 1

The following is the syntax for multiple prompts and answers:

- name: Crear contraseña
  expect:
    command: passwd openvpn
    responses:
      (?i)Enter new password: "a1245"
      (?i)Enter new password: "a1245"

Notice: ñ is a Unicode character, so it might require quoting, or you can change the language to English.

You need Ansible 2.1 - per responses argument description in the expect module doc:

If the response is a list, successive matches return successive responses. List functionality is new in 2.1.

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That said, it's somewhat cumbersome to use expect module to do what you can achieve "natively" with the user module.