How To Fix An Error With Getting Values From A List

Question

I was trying to create users using ansible. I created a variable called users with the list of users and other options inside it. Here it is:

users:
  - { user_name: "user1", sudo_type: "full", password: "pass", ssh_pub_key: "ssh-rsa AAAAB..." }
  - { user_name: "user2", sudo_type: "limited", password: "somepass", ssh_pub_key: "ssh-rsa AAAAB3..." }

I then created the following task:

- name: create local users
  local_action: user name={{ users.user_name }} createhome=yes state=present password={{ users.password }} shell=/bin/bash generate_ssh_key=yes ssh_key_type=rsa ssh_key_comment="{{ ansible_hostname }}-{{ users.user_name }}"

When I ran the playbook, it failed with the following error:

fatal: [10.60.16.1]: FAILED! => {"failed": true, "msg": "the field 'args' has an invalid value, which appears to include a variable that is undefined. The error was: 'list object' has no attribute 'user_name'\n\nThe error appears to have been in '/root/ansible-builds/roles/users/tasks/main.yml': line 11, column 3, but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.\n\nThe offending line appears to be:\n\n\n- name: create local users\n  ^ here\n"}

Where is the issue at?

Answer 1

users is a list which has no attribute user_name. It has only items and each item has an attribute user_name. You have to loop through the list of users. Something like:

vars:
  users:
    - { user_name: "user1", sudo_type: "full", password: "pass", ssh_pub_key: "ssh-rsa AAAAB..." }
    - { user_name: "user2", sudo_type: "limited", password: "somepass", ssh_pub_key: "ssh-rsa AAAAB3..." }

tasks:
  - name: create local users
    shell: echo {{ item.user_name }}
    with_items: "{{ users }}"

So your task will be like:

  - name: create local users
    local_action: user name={{ item.user_name }} createhome=yes state=present password={{ item.password }} shell=/bin/bash generate_ssh_key=yes ssh_key_type=rsa ssh_key_comment="{{ ansible_hostname }}-{{ item.user_name }}"
    with_items: "{{ users }}"