Tag: ansible

Solved: ansible-lint on macOS “FATAL: Ansible CLI and python module versions do not match.”

My Problem

While attempting to run ansible-lint on macOS, I received the error:

FATAL: Ansible CLI (2.10.8) and python module (2.11.5) versions do not match. This indicates a broken execution environment.

My Solution

I ran the following destructive command, but before you even think about running it yourself, please familiarize yourself with what it will do:

brew link --overwrite ansible

The Long Story

While attempting to lint some Ansible .yml files, I realized that the specific macOS machine I was on didn’t have ansible-lint. I begrudgingly use Homebrew on it to manage packages formulae. I ran brew install ansible-lint in a hurry, and attempted to immediately use it. I then received this error:

FATAL: Ansible CLI (2.10.8) and python module (2.11.5) versions do not match. This indicates a broken execution environment.

My first thought was to check if the ansible command corroborated that it was indeed 2.10.8 and it did:

ansible --version
ansible 2.10.8
config file = None
configured module search path = ['/Users/username/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
ansible python module location = /usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/ansible
executable location = /usr/local/bin/ansible
python version = 3.9.7 (default, Sep 3 2021, 12:37:55) [Clang 12.0.5 (clang-1205.0.22.9)]

Then, I checked pip list and saw:

ansible-base 2.10.8

I even checked the release.py file:

grep __version__ /usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/ansible/release.py __version__ = '2.10.8'

Clearly there’s a different version of Ansible somewhere, so I brute-forced the situation by searching for every file named release.py that was in a path with the word ansible in it:

mdfind "kMDItemDisplayName == 'release.py'c"
/usr/local/Cellar/ansible/4.6.0/libexec/lib/python3.9/site-packages/ansible/release.py
/Users/wdecesare/gitstuff/sre/inventory/release.py
/usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/ansible/release.py

🤔

Hold up. There appears to be two Ansibles installed. One is in the standard filesystem paths, and another is in Homebrew’s Cellar path. Let’s check the Homebrew version:

grep __version__ /usr/local/Cellar/ansible/4.6.0/libexec/lib/python3.9/site-packages/ansible/release.py
__version__ = '2.11.5'

Because I used Homebrew to install ansible-lint, it also installed ansible in Homebrew’s path. In the past, I had installed Ansible using pip which installed binaries in standard OS paths.

If I had paid attention when I was installing ansible-lint I would have noticed this very informative error:

==> Pouring ansible--4.6.0.big_sur.bottle.tar.gz
Error: The brew link step did not complete successfully
The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
Could not symlink bin/ansible
Target /usr/local/bin/ansible
already exists. You may want to remove it:
rm '/usr/local/bin/ansible'

To force the link and overwrite all conflicting files:
brew link --overwrite ansible

To list all files that would be deleted:
brew link --overwrite --dry-run ansible

Possible conflicting files are:
/usr/local/bin/ansible
/usr/local/bin/ansible-config
/usr/local/bin/ansible-connection
/usr/local/bin/ansible-console
/usr/local/bin/ansible-doc
/usr/local/bin/ansible-galaxy
/usr/local/bin/ansible-inventory
/usr/local/bin/ansible-playbook
/usr/local/bin/ansible-pull
/usr/local/bin/ansible-test
/usr/local/bin/ansible-vault

When considering the situation, I realized that I’d rather be managing all of Ansible’s binaries in Homebrew, so I was comfortable with running brew link --overwrite ansible. The problem was solved, and I could continue on until the next problem.

Solving ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘ansible’

My Problem

When running any ansible command, I see a stack trace similar to:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/bin/ansible", line 34, in
from ansible import context
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'ansible'

My Solution

pip install ansible or brew install ansible or yum install ansible or…

Somehow your Ansible Python modules were removed, but the Ansible scripts in your $PATH remained. Install Ansible’s python package however makes the most sense for your platform and preferences. E.g. via pip directly or Homebrew or your package manager of choice.

The Long Story

Let’s break the error down line by line:

File "/usr/local/bin/ansible", line 34, in

Ansible is just a Python script, so let’s check out line 34:

[...]
31 import sys
32 import traceback
33
34 from ansible import context
35 from ansible.errors import AnsibleError, AnsibleOptionsError, AnsibleParserError
36 from ansible.module_utils._text import to_text
[...]

The second line in the stack trace shows that from ansible import context is just another module import in the larger context of the Python application. With that larger context clarified, this error may snap a bit more into focus:

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'ansible'

It’s just a Python application that can’t find a module. If there’s no module, let’s check with Python to see what packages it knows about:

$ pip list

Package    Version
---------- -------
gpg        1.14.0
pip        20.1.1
protobuf   3.13.0
setuptools 49.2.0
six        1.15.0
wheel.     0.34.2

There’s no Ansible package listed. Wait, which version of Python did I just check?

$ which pip
pip: aliased to pip3

Let’s check pip2 just to make sure there’s no version weirdness going on:

$ pip2 list

Package      Version
------------ -------
altgraph     0.10.2
asn1crypto   0.24.0
bdist-mpkg   0.5.0
bonjour-py   0.3
boto         2.49.0
cffi         1.12.2
cryptography 2.6.1
enum34       1.1.6
future       0.17.1
[...]

Nope, no Ansible. Since I’m on a Mac, let’s check Brew just to see what comes back:

brew list ansible
Error: No such keg: /usr/local/Cellar/ansible

I’m not really sure what happened. I’ve got the Ansible scripts in my path, but I don’t have the python modules. I prefer to install Ansible via pip so I simply pip install ansible and everything was right with the world.