Ansible playbook shell command variable undefined

Question

My ansible script is made for deploying vm's in virsh and installing them with cobbler. Using a IP address fixed on mac address. To do this the mac address is needed. But I am having a hard time getting the output of the grep command to register as variable mac_address. The variable stay's undefined.

When running the command ad-hoc it works fine:

[root@pxecobbler test]# ansible pirate.rum.local -m shell -a 'virsh domiflist testvm3 | grep -o -E "([0-9a-f]{2}:){5}([0-9a-f]{2})"' pirate.rum.local | SUCCESS | rc=0 >> 52:54:00:ec:a5:49 

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In the ansible playbook it fails,the variable stays undefined:

- name: get MAC adres new VM shell: > virsh domiflist {{ item.key }} | grep -o -E "([0-9a-f]{2}:){5}([0-9a-f]{2})" with_dict: "{{ guests }}" register: mac_address - debug: msg: "{{ mac_address }}" 

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error message:

fatal: [pirate.rum.local]: FAILED! => {"msg": "The task includes an option with an undefined variable. The error was: 'dict object' has no attribute 'stdout_lines'\n\nThe error appears to have been in '/root/virsh-create-vm/virsh-create- vm.yml': line 47, column 7, but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.\n\nThe offending line appears to be:\n\n register: mac_address\n - debug: var=\"{{ mac_address.stdout_lines }}\"\n ^ here\nWe could be wrong, but this one looks like it might be an issue with\nmissing quotes. Always quote template expression brackets when they\nstart a value. For instance:\n\n with_items:\n - {{ foo }}\n\nShould be written as:\n\n with_items:\n - \"{{ foo }}\"\n\nexception type: <class 'ansible.errors.AnsibleUndefinedVariable'>\nexception: 'dict object' has no attribute 'stdout_lines'"} to retry, use: --limit @/root/virsh-create-vm/virsh-create-vm.retry 

whole script:

---

- name: create VMs hosts: pirate.rum.local become: true vars_files: - vms.yml tasks: - name: get VM disks command: "ls {{ vm_location }}" register: disks changed_when: "disks.rc != 0" - name: create disk command: > qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o preallocation=metadata {{ vm_location }}/{{ item.key }}.qcow2 10G when: item.key not in disks.stdout with_dict: "{{ guests }}" - name: get list of VMs virt: command: "list_vms" register: vms - name: create vm command: > virt-install --name {{ item.key }} --memory {{ item.value.mem }} --vcpus {{ item.value.cpus }} --pxe --network network=nat,model=virtio \ --disk {{ vm_location }}/{{ item.key }}.qcow2 --noautoconsole --os-variant {{ item.value.os_type }} when: item.key not in vms.list_vms with_dict: "{{ guests }}" - name: get MAC adres new VM shell: > virsh domiflist {{ item.key }} | grep -o -E "([0-9a-f]{2}:){5}([0-9a-f]{2})" with_dict: "{{ guests }}" register: mac_address - debug: msg: "{{ mac_address }}" # new tasks sequence on PXECobbler - name: Register new VM's on Cobbler PXE host hosts: pxecobbler.rum.local vars_files: - vms.yml tasks: - name: register new VM on PXE cobbler host mac {{ mac_address.stdout }} shell: > cobbler system add --name={{ item.key }} --profile=CentOS-7-x86_64 --interface=eth0 --mac={{ mac_address.stdout }} --ip-address={{ item.value.ip }} --netboot-enabled=1 --static=1 with_dict: "{{ guests }}" 

Answer 1

When you say with_dict it means you're looping. With register: mac_address you get not a simple usual object but an array filled by your loop.

Try something like this:

 # new tasks sequence on PXECobbler - name: Register new VM's on Cobbler PXE host hosts: pxecobbler.rum.local vars_files: - vms.yml - shell: echo {{ item.changed }} {{ item.stdout }} # will print: True 00:11:22:33:44 with_items: "{{ mac_address.results }}" register: b - debug: msg: "{{ b }}" 

Next time when you've lost pay special attention to get the really basic tasks correct. Your question would be much simpler if you cited your actual yml as-is (it contained debug: var="{{ mac_address.stdout_lines }}" which you didn't cite).