Ansible expect regex issue

ansible

I am a newbie in Ansible. I was trying to use expect with Ansible to automate package installation (in below example – uninstall). During lynx package uninstall manually, I get following prompt. In expect response field – I was trying to match this pattern (both lines) but my script fails. Though it works for one line – Is this ok [y/N]: y. Regex that I have used for both lines is Installed size: 5.4 M\nIs this ok [y/N]: y

-----------------------
Installed size: 5.4 M
Is this ok [y/N]: 
----------------------

Code 1 (pattern match for both lines – failure):

[ansible@localhost ansible]$ cat main.yml
---
- hosts: localhost 
  remote_user: ansible
  become: yes
  become_method: sudo
  connection: ssh
  gather_facts: yes
  tasks:
  - name: remove a package 
    expect:
      command: yum remove lynx
      responses:
        Installed size: 5.4 M\nIs this ok \[y\/N\]: y 
        #Is this ok \[y\/N\]: y
      echo: yes

Output:

[ansible@localhost ansible]$ ansible-playbook main.yml
[DEPRECATION WARNING]: DEFAULT_SUDO_USER option, In favor of become which is a generic framework . This feature will be removed in version 2.8. Deprecation 
warnings can be disabled by setting deprecation_warnings=False in ansible.cfg.
ERROR! Syntax Error while loading YAML.


The error appears to have been in '/etc/ansible/main.yml': line 13, column 51, but may
be elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.

The offending line appears to be:

      responses:
        Installed size: 5.4 M\nIs this ok \[y\/N\]: y
                                                  ^ here

exception type: <class 'yaml.scanner.ScannerError'>
exception: mapping values are not allowed in this context
  in "<unicode string>", line 13, column 51
[ansible@localhost ansible]$ 

=======================================================================
Code 2 (pattern match for one line – works fine):

[ansible@localhost ansible]$ cat main.yml
---
- hosts: localhost 
  remote_user: ansible
  become: yes
  become_method: sudo
  connection: ssh
  gather_facts: yes
  tasks:
  - name: remove a package 
    expect:
      command: yum remove lynx
      responses:
        #Installed size: 5.4 M\nIs this ok \[y\/N\]: y 
         Is this ok \[y\/N\]: y
      echo: yes

Output

[ansible@localhost ansible]$ 

[ansible@localhost ansible]$ ansible-playbook main.yml
[DEPRECATION WARNING]: DEFAULT_SUDO_USER option, In favor of become which is a generic framework . This feature will be removed in version 2.8. Deprecation 
warnings can be disabled by setting deprecation_warnings=False in ansible.cfg.

PLAY [localhost] *********************************************************************************************************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] ***************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [127.0.0.1]

TASK [remove a package] **************************************************************************************************************************************
changed: [127.0.0.1]

PLAY RECAP ***************************************************************************************************************************************************
127.0.0.1                  : ok=2    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0   

Best Answer

You would be better off using the yum module.

---
- hosts: localhost 
  remote_user: ansible
  become: yes
  become_method: sudo
  connection: ssh
  gather_facts: yes
  tasks:
  - yum: 
      name: lynx
      state: absent

Or package

---
- hosts: localhost 
  remote_user: ansible
  become: yes
  become_method: sudo
  connection: ssh
  gather_facts: yes
  tasks:
  - pacakge: 
      name: lynx
      state: absent

You should always use a module over command/shell when possible. Modules give you error checking and idempotency without you having to adding tons of logic to your shell/command.