How to use register in this context? (Ansible) - ansible

Question

Thanks for your time reading this (probably dumb question)...
I have the following playbook:
- hosts: all
gather_facts: true
vars:
ansible_python_interpreter: /usr/bin/python
tasks:
- name: Get shard status.
shell:
cmd: |
mongo node1:27020 --eval "sh.status()" | grep shards -A 4 | awk -F ':|,|/' '{ print $2 " ", " ", $5,$7,$9}' | sed -e '1 i Shard Nodes' | column -t
when: ansible_fqdn == 'node1'
register: shards_status
- name: Get replica status from SHARD1.
shell:
cmd: |
mongo --eval 'printjson(rs.status())' | grep -E "stateStr|name" | awk -F ':' '{ print $2 }' | sed 's/"//g'| sed 's/,//g'| xargs -n2 | sed -e '1 i Server Status' | column -t
when: ansible_fqdn == 'node1'
register: shard1
- name: Get replica status from SHARD2.
shell:
cmd: |
mongo --eval 'printjson(rs.status())' | grep -E "stateStr|name" | awk -F ':' '{ print $2 }' | sed 's/"//g'| sed 's/,//g'| xargs -n2 | sed -e '1 i Server Status' | column -t
when: ansible_fqdn == 'node2'
register: shard2
- name: Get replica status from SHARD3.
shell:
cmd: |
mongo --eval 'printjson(rs.status())' | grep -E "stateStr|name" | awk -F ':' '{ print $2 }' | sed 's/"//g'| sed 's/,//g'| xargs -n2 | sed -e '1 i Server Status' | column -t
when: ansible_fqdn == 'node3'
register: shard3
- name: Get replica status from SHARD4.
shell:
cmd: |
mongo --eval 'printjson(rs.status())' | grep -E "stateStr|name" | awk -F ':' '{ print $2 }' | sed 's/"//g'| sed 's/,//g'| xargs -n2 | sed -e '1 i Server Status' | column -t
when: ansible_fqdn == 'node4'
register: shard4
- name: Append logs.
lineinfile:
dest: /tmp/status.txt
line: "{{ item }}"
insertafter: EOF
with_items:
- "{{ shards_status.stdout }}"
- "{{ shard1.stdout }}"
- "{{ shard2.stdout }}"
- "{{ shard3.stdout }}"
- "{{ shard4.stdout }}"
delegate_to: localhost
I want to have in one file (/tmp/status.txt) the result of the above vars (shard1,2,3,4). The issue is, if I run the playbook, I got the following message:
TASK [Append logs.] ****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [node1]: FAILED! => {"failed": true, "msg": "'dict object' has no attribute 'stdout'"}
fatal: [node2]: FAILED! => {"failed": true, "msg": "'dict object' has no attribute 'stdout'"}
fatal: [node3]: FAILED! => {"failed": true, "msg": "'dict object' has no attribute 'stdout'"}
fatal: [node4]: FAILED! => {"failed": true, "msg": "'dict object' has no attribute 'stdout'"}
Any idea of how I can achieve this?
I have tried accessing into the dic, running only that task from one node and multiple workarounds.. but no luck

Answer 1

I believe this failure is because each time you are guarding your tasks with when: ansible_fqdn == 'node1'.
So when ansible is executing this playbook in node1, its executing all node1 tasks and then when it reaches the Append logs. task it tries to dump the stdout from node2. But since we are running in node1, node2 dictionary is empty, hence 'dict object' has no attribute 'stdout'.
One solution would be to give it a default value, for example
with_items:
- "{{ shards_status.stdout | default("") }}"
- "{{ shard1.stdout | default("") }}"
- "{{ shard2.stdout | default("") }}"
- "{{ shard3.stdout | default("") }}"
- "{{ shard4.stdout | default("") }}"
default value for dictionary in jinja2 (ansible)
But the proper ansible solution would be to change your playbook and way of thinking.
With an inventory like this
[mongo]
shard1 get_shard_status=true
shard2
shard3
shard4
your playbook could look something like this
- hosts: mongo
vars:
get_shard_status: false
tasks:
- name: get shard status
shell: mongo node1:27020 --eval "sh.status()" | grep shards -A 4 | awk -F ':|,|/' '{ print $2 " ", " ", $5,$7,$9}' | sed -e '1 i Shard Nodes' | column -t
register: shard_status
when: get_shard_status
- name: get the replica status
shell: mongo --eval 'printjson(rs.status())' | grep -E "stateStr|name" | awk -F ':' '{ print $2 }' | sed 's/"//g'| sed 's/,//g'| xargs -n2 | sed -e '1 i Server Status' | column -t
register: replicas
- name: dump status to localhost
lineinfile:
line: "{{ shard_status + '\n' | default('') }}{{ replicas.stdout }}"
state: present
become: false
dest: "/tmp/foobar"
delegate_to: localhost
With this way, if you had another mongo node, you would only modify your inventory and not your playbook and you also dont have to guard the replicas.stdout with a | default("") as you are always executing that in your nodes.