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Ansible Playbooks - Error Handling

Advanced error handling is one of the many strengths of Ansible. Software systems are seldom perfect, and that is an issue in this exercise. Students must configure an Ansible playbook to handle an unreliable connection. This skill is not only essential for practical Ansible use, but also an objective on the Red Hat Certified Ansible Specialist Exam. *This course is not approved or sponsored by Red Hat.*

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Path Info

Level
Clock icon Intermediate
Duration
Clock icon 1h 30m
Last updated
Clock icon Aug 29, 2025

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Table of Contents

  1. Challenge

    Create a playbook: `/home/ansible/report.yml`

    echo "---" >> /home/ansible/report.yml

  2. Challenge

    Configure the Playbook to Download *http://apps.l33t.com/transaction_list* to `/home/ansible/transaction_list` on `localhost` and Outputs the Message "File downloaded." to `stdout`

    Using a text editor, such as vim, edit /home/ansible/report.yml to contain the following text block below the line containing "---":

    - hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - name: download transaction_list
      get_url:
        url: http://apps.l33t.com/transaction_list 
        dest: /home/ansible/transaction_list
    - debug: msg="File downloaded"

  3. Challenge

    Configure the Playbook to Handle Connection Failure by Outputting "l33t.com appears to be down. Try again later." to `stdout`

    Using a text editor, such as vim, edit the tasks section in /home/ansible/report.yml to contain the new lines as shown below. Note that the get_url line was changed to include a leading hyphen:

    ---
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - name: download transaction_list
      block:
        - get_url:
            url: http://apps.l33t.com/transaction_list
            dest: /home/ansible/transaction_list
        - debug: msg="File downloaded"
      rescue:
        - debug: msg="l33t.com appears to be down.  Try again later."

  4. Challenge

    Configure the Playbook to Output "Attempt Completed" to `stdout`, Whether It Was Successful or Not

    Using a text editor, such as vim, edit the tasks section in /home/ansible/report.yml to contain the new lines as shown below.

    ---
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - name: download transaction_list
      block:
        - get_url:
            url: http://apps.l33t.com/transaction_list
            dest: /home/ansible/transaction_list
        - debug: msg="File downloaded"
      rescue:
        - debug: msg="l33t.com appears to be down.  Try again later."
      always:
        - debug: msg="Attempt completed."

  5. Challenge

    Configure the Playbook to Replace All Instances of `#BLANKLINE` with the Line Break Character `\n`

    Using a text editor, such as vim, edit the block section in /home/ansible/report.yml to contain the new lines as shown below:

    ---
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - name: download transaction_list
      block:
        - get_url:
            url: http://apps.l33t.com/transaction_list
            dest: /home/ansible/transaction_list
        - replace: 
            path: /home/ansible/transaction_list 
            regexp: "#BLANKLINE"
            replace: '\n'
        - debug: msg="File downloaded"
      rescue:
        - debug: msg="l33t.com appears to be down.  Try again later."
      always:
        - debug: msg="Attempt completed."

  6. Challenge

    Verify Configuration by Running the Playbook

    ansible-playbook /home/ansible/report.yml

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