Ansible playbook can not connect to remote user through ssh => unreachable & permission denied

I'm building a complete solution to setup and harden our vps (ubuntu 22.04) with bash script and Ansible playbooks. What I want to do is the following:

1. Create a custom group "sudogroup" with sudo privileges
2. Create a new user "sudouser" in this group
3. Secure SSH connection to this user with keys pair
4. Execute my Ansible playbook as "sudouser" instead of "root"

I'm doing this with the following bash script:

#------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Prepare Vars #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Remote Server Machine IPSERVER="XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX" ROOTUSER_NAME="root" ROOTUSER_PASSWORD="password1" #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Sudo Group & User SUDOGROUP="sudogroup" SUDOUSER_NAME="sudouser" SUDOUSER_PASSWORD="password2" #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # SSH Connections SSHROOTPASS=$ROOTUSER_PASSWORD SSHCRYPTALGO="ecdsa" # rsa (regular) - dsa (not recommanded) - ecdsa (best) SSHCRYPTBYTES="521" # Strongest: [rsa : 4096] - [dsa: 1024] - [ecdsa: 521] SSHFILENAME="id_$SSHCRYPTALGO" #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # SSH Connections SSHCRYPTALGO="ecdsa" # rsa (regular) - dsa (not recommanded) - ecdsa (best) SSHCRYPTBYTES="521" # rsa : 4096 - dsa: 1024 - ecdsa: 521 SSHPORT="22" SSHROOTCONN="$ROOTUSER_NAME@$IPSERVER" SSHROOTPASS=$ROOTUSER_PASSWORD SSHROOTOPTIONS="-p $SSHPORT -tt -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o BatchMode=no" SSHROOTFILENAME="id_$SSHCRYPTALGO" SSHADMCONN="$SUDOUSER_NAME@$IPSERVER" SSHADMPASS=$SUDOUSER_PASSWORD SSHADMFILENAME="id_"$SSHCRYPTALGO"_"$SUDOUSER_NAME #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Create a hidden [/home/$SUDOUSER_NAME/.ssh] directory to store SSL keys sudo mkdir -p ~/.ssh sudo chmod 700 ~/.ssh #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Register Remote Server IP in known hosts sudo ssh-keyscan -H $IPSERVER >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Create a new SUDO privileged users group & new User on remote server #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ sshpass -p "$SSHROOTPASS" ssh $SSHROOTOPTIONS $SSHROOTCONN "bash -s" << ENDSSH01 stty -echo # Backup [sudoers] configuration file to recover, just in case cp --archive /etc/sudoers /etc/sudoers-COPY-$(date +"%Y%m%d%H%M%S") #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Create a new group of users groupadd $SUDOGROUP #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Add [$SUDOGROUP] to [sudoers] configuration file echo "%$SUDOGROUP ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL" >> /etc/sudoers #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Create a new sudo User named [$SUDOUSER_NAME] useradd -m -s /bin/bash -g $SUDOGROUP $SUDOUSER_NAME #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Set password of the new sudo User named [$SUDOUSER_NAME] echo "$SUDOUSER_NAME:$SUDOUSER_PASSWORD" | chpasswd #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ stty echo exit ENDSSH01 #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Setup SSH Connection between local Client and remote Server #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Create SSH Keys pair for [sudouser] sudo ssh-keygen -t $SSHCRYPTALGO -b $SSHCRYPTBYTES -N "" -f ~/.ssh/$SSHADMFILENAME <<< y sudo ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/$SSHADMFILENAME.pub $SUDOUSER_NAME@$IPSERVER -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Send a PING to the remote server to check SSH Connection to [sudouser] sudo ansible all -i inventory -m ping --private-key=~/.ssh/$SSHADMFILENAME #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Execute Ansible Playbook to setup remote Ubuntu 18/20/22 Remote Server #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ sudo ansible-playbook -i inventory setup_server.yml --private-key=~/.ssh/$SSHADMFILENAME #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

The Ansible Inventory file:

[OURVPS] 195.179.193.224 

The Ansible playbook starts like this:

#------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # ANSIBLE PLAYBOOK #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - name: SETUP UBUNTU 22.04 SERVER / VPS hosts: OURVPS remote_user: sudouser become: yes become_method: sudo #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ vars: #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # Disable strict host key checking when connecting to remote hosts via SSH ansible_ssh_common_args: "-o StrictHostKeyChecking=no" ... #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ tasks: #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ... 

The bash script executes correctly (group and user are correctly setup) with no error, until it tries to execute the ansible playbook.

The PING command returns:

XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX | SUCCESS => { "ansible_facts": { "discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3" }, "changed": false, "ping": "pong" } 

Then, I always receive the same error:

fatal: [XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX]: UNREACHABLE! => {"changed": false, "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: [email protected]: Permission denied (publickey,password).", "unreachable": true} 

What I already tried:

• connect manually with:
  ssh [email protected]
  => Works fine: connection established!

• connect manually with:
  ssh -o 'StrictHostKeyChecking=no' [email protected]
  => Works fine: connection established!

Why does this ansible playbook refuse to execute correctly ???
If I can connect manually, then why Ansible can not connect automatically ???

P.S: This question could be a duplicate of other questions available but I did not get any positive insight to match with my case.