Using ansible to reboot a remote host that does not have python installed - ansible

Question

My organization has tasked me with finding out a way to use Ansible to automate rebooting some of our cctv cameras, as we currently use it for a lot of our other infrastructure
The cameras (Axis) are running armv7l GNU/Linux with some proprietary stuff built on top, however python is not installed and after doing quite a bit of research and reaching out to the vendor there is no "official" way of installing python without something else breaking.
That being said, I have looked around and have come across of two Ansible modules that could potentially do this, raw and script. All that needs to be done is to reboot these cameras.
However, I am now completely lost in finding a solution to my issue. Below is my current playbook and output.
- name: cctv restart playbook
hosts: all
gather_facts: no
tasks:
- name: restart cctv
raw:
cmd: reboot
The output from when I run this playbook is
PLAY [cctv restart playbook] ***************************************************************************************************************
TASK [restart cctv] ************************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [192.168.10.130]: FAILED! => {"changed": true, "msg": "non-zero return code", "rc": 127, "stderr": "Shared connection to 192.168.10.130 closed.\r\n", "stderr_lines": ["Shared connection to 192.168.10.130 closed."], "stdout": "sh: None: not found\r\n", "stdout_lines": ["sh: None: not found"]}
PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************************************************************************
192.168.10.130 : ok=0 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=1 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0
Please let me know what needs to be done to fix this, or if it is just not possible

Answer 1

While the comments on your question are partly correct, the immediate source of your error message appears to be a syntax issue. The raw command does not support a cmd parameter; even targeting a regular Linux system, a playbook like this:
- hosts: all
gather_facts: false
tasks:
- name: restart cctv
raw:
cmd: "date"
Results in the same error:
fatal: [node0]: FAILED! => {"changed": true, "msg":
"non-zero return code", "rc": 127, "stderr": "Warning:
Permanently added 'localhost' (ED25519) to the list of
known hosts.\r\nShared connection to localhost
closed.\r\n", "stderr_lines": ["Warning: Permanently added
'localhost' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.",
"Shared connection to localhost closed."], "stdout":
"bash: None: command not found\r\n", "stdout_lines":
["bash: None: command not found"]}
Which, stripped of all the extranneous bits, reads:
bash: None: command not found
(This is at least true for Ansible core 2.14.1, which is what I'm running, and that matches the documentation for the raw module.)
You need to write your task like this:
- hosts: all
gather_facts: false
tasks:
- name: restart cctv
raw: "date"
As #Zeitounator said in their comment, for this to work, your remote device needs to be at least a minimal Linux-like environment with a sh command. Assuming that you have this, you would still expect to see an error when attempting to run the reboot command, because that causes the connection to drop. That would look something like this:
fatal: [node0]: UNREACHABLE! => {"changed": false, "msg":
"Failed to connect to the host via ssh: Shared connection
to node0.virt closed.", "unreachable": true}
Since you know that's going to result in an error, you can tell Ansible to ignore the failure. For example:
- hosts: all
gather_facts: false
become: true
tasks:
- name: restart cctv
raw: "reboot"
ignore_unreachable: true
Running this playbook results in:
PLAY [all] **********************************************************************************************
TASK [restart cctv] *************************************************************************************
fatal: [node0]: UNREACHABLE! => {"changed": false, "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: Shared connection to node0.virt closed.", "unreachable": true}
...ignoring
PLAY RECAP **********************************************************************************************
node0 : ok=1 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=1
(And the target system reboots.)