Ansible shell returns multiple values

Question

I'm getting an unexpected behavior from executing a shell remotely with Ansible. When I execute the following command on the remote machine, the result is:

$ echo $(pgrep -f jboss)
13248

Now if I execute the command as Ansible shell I get as return multiple pids:

$ ansible jboss.servers -m shell -a 'echo $(pgrep -f jboss)' -u centos
10.3.9.155 | SUCCESS | rc=0 >>
13248 16362 16363

As I need to further elaborate the shell, I need to find a way to get the same result as if I'm on the remote machine. I've tried with:

'echo $(pgrep -f jboss | awk '{ print $1 }')'

But that doesn't work because the expression is already in single quotes. Any help ?

helloV · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-21 16:54:39Z

1

Because pgrep returns the Ansible processes too. Try:

ansible jboss.servers -m shell -a 'ps ax | grep jboss'

then you know why you are getting the additional PIDs. One way to fix it is not to use pgrep and instead use ps and grep.

ansible jboss.servers -m shell -a 'ps ax | grep [j]boss | cut -d " " -f2'

answered Dec 21, 2016 at 16:54

helloV

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Francesco Marchioni Over a year ago

Thanks a lot. I had just to change the column to be f1 (otherwise the tty is returned). Now it works like a charm!

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