Running Ansible from Shell Scripts

Scale and Debugging / Guide 40 of 45 / Intermediate

• OSUbuntu 26.04 LTS
• ansible-core2.20.1
• Python3.14.4
• TimeAbout 16 min

ansible-playbook exit codes: 0 success, 1 an error such as a missing playbook, 2 one or more hosts failed, 3 all hosts failed, 4 all hosts unreachable, 99 interrupted. The one to be careful about is that a run which matched no hosts at all is a success.

This guide includes

Use this because scripting administration tasks is an objective in its own right. This matters because Ansible's exit codes are specific - and a wrapper that does not check them will report success for a failed run.

• reading the exit codes ansible actually returns
• reading the different set ansible-playbook returns
• wrapping an ad-hoc command in a script that checks them
• wrapping a playbook that takes arguments
• making the output machine-readable with the JSON callback

Before you start

• A control node configured as shown in the first step.
• The session writes two scripts to the home directory, runs them, and removes them.

1. 1

   The configuration this guide assumes

2. 2

   The exit codes Ansible actually returns

3. 3

   Playbook exit codes

4. 4

   A script that wraps an ad-hoc command

5. 5

   A script that runs a playbook with arguments

6. 6

   Making the output machine-readable

Official sources

• ansible-playbook
• Callback plugins
• Ansible Configuration Settings