I am trying to copy large sets of files (in 100's) to my remote server. However, using 'copy' command this task is taking considerably long time. Searching a bit, I understood the 'synchronize' is a good suit for this. Unfortunately my current remote servers do not have 'rsync' and so I am not able to use the 'synchronize' option as well.
As a workaround, I wanted to zip the folder in ansible host and then transfer it to the remote server by using the 'unarchive' module.
- name: Archive the folder
shell: zip <dest-zip-path> <path-to-folder>
delegate_to: localhost
However, doing this I am getting the following error: "module_stderr": "sudo: a password is required\n"
Is there a simpler to zip the folder locally on the ansible host before transfering?
You are probably using become: true on your play. This also applies when delegating to localhost. But it requires a password on your local machine.
Since you probably don't need this, simply apply become: false to this specific task. Else you will have to configure privilege escalation on localhost or provide a become_password.
Moreover, you should consider using the archive module rather than using shell.