Print Ansible header before executing a long running task

Question

Context

I have an Ansible playbook that includes a very long task, up to one hour.

Very simplified, it looks like:

- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
  - name: Short task
    debug:
      msg: "I'm quick!"

  - name: Long task
    shell: "sleep 15s"

When the user runs the playbook, the output is at first:

PLAY [localhost] ********************
TASK [Gathering Facts] **************
ok: [127.0.0.1]

TASK [Short task] *******************
ok: [127.0.0.1] => {
    "msg": "I'm quick!"
}

(hang there until Long task is done)

TASK [Long task] ********************
changed: [127.0.0.1]

Problem

The end users of the playbook believe that there is a problem with Short task since it hangs there, while it's Long task that is causing the delay.

Question

How could I configure ansible or the playbook to print the headers defined in name: before excuting the task?

What I what to achieve is an output like:

PLAY [localhost] ********************
TASK [Gathering Facts] **************
ok: [127.0.0.1]

TASK [Short task] *******************
ok: [127.0.0.1] => {
    "msg": "I'm quick!"
}

TASK [Long task] ********************

(and hang there during the execution)

changed: [127.0.0.1]

Answer 1

Migrating my comment to an answer upon OP's request

---

I am using Ansible 2.9.2.

I tried with no config file and with a config file with no value declared for stdout_callback (default). I cannot reproduce your problem in either case.

This is my test playbook:

---
- hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false

  tasks:

    - name: Short running
      debug:
        msg: I'm a short task

    - name: LOOOOOOOOOng task
      shell: sleep 2000

And the result (in both cases. Note: interruption by user after task header display)

$ ansible-playbook /tmp/play.yml  

PLAY [localhost] **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Short running] **********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
    "msg": "I'm a short task"
}

TASK [LOOOOOOOOOng task] ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
^C [ERROR]: User interrupted execution

Double check which config file you are loading with ansible-playbook --version in the directory where you are going to launch the playbook. I also suggest you try without any config file to see if it fixes your issue (and then see which setting is actually causing the issue).

---

Added from OP's comment: it turns out the problematic setting in ansible.cfg in this specific case was display_skipped_hosts=False

Answer 2

The display_skipped_hosts=false in /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg fixed it for me.

Is it a bug? I don't like to see the skipped hosts but do like to see the progress of my playbook.

Using Ansible 2.10.3

Answer 3

For those who still want to hide skipped tasks there is now two options:

1. Using the default callback plugin and setting display_skipped_hosts = False and show_per_host_start = True, this will add another log line when each task is started, however it doesn't get quite the behaviour back of just outputting the title in time (and somehow sometimes also appears after a task is already doen, hence making things harder to read)
2. Keep using the (now deprecated) skippy plugin which was the go to plugin before the default plugin got the feature for skipping. It still works as expected with 2.11 and is also my preferred fix to this. Set stdout_callback = skippy in your ansible.cfg. Just to make sure I also whitelisted the plugin with callback_enabled = ansible.posix.skippy

My ansible.cfg looks like this now and all works as before I migrated to latest ansible.cfg with defaults:

[default]
# ...
stdout_callback = skippy
# if you had other plugins here just add to list, comma seperated
callback_enabled = ansible.posix.skippy
# deprecated flag, sometimes still needed, hence I always set both
callback_whitelist = ansible.posix.skippy
# ...

Further reading:

• Ticket about the issue: https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/51042
• PR that introduced the feature to default plugin to add start task output https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/53819
• Latest docs for default plugin https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/default_callback.html
• Latest docs of skippy plugin https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/posix/skippy_callback.html
• How to setup callback plugins https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/plugins/callback.html

Answer 4

a simple approach to this is to print a message informing the user that a long task is going to be executed and then start the task execution.

Answer 5

In my case, I was using the "free" strategy which would not show the header before finishing with the task.