One of the boring things while working with Ansible is that it prompts each time the hosts’ SSH passwords.

$ ansible-playbook my-playbook.yml
SSH password:

I kept entering passwords a very long time when creating/modifying playbooks.

Finally, I decided not to enter ssh passwords each time. Its very simple configuration indeed.

Here it is;

Ansible Config

I removed ask_pass=True line in ansible.cfg file. I added a new group variables section for the whole inventory, it can be added for a specific group though.

[all:vars]
ansible_user=<username>
ansible_ssh_pass=<ssh_pass>

Now it is time to run the playbook;

ansible-playbook my-playbook.yml

And the result is disappointing!

TASK [common : Installing python2 for Ansible]
fatal: [192.168.1.98]: FAILED! => {"msg": "to use the 'ssh' connection type with passwords, you must install the sshpass program"}
fatal: [192.168.1.100]: FAILED! => {"msg": "to use the 'ssh' connection type with passwords, you must install the sshpass program"}
fatal: [192.168.1.101]: FAILED! => {"msg": "to use the 'ssh' connection type with passwords, you must install the sshpass program"}

Sshpass

Ansible says it needs sshpass to be able to run ssh commands without prompting passwords.

Ok, let’s do the last step by installing sshpass;

On Ubuntu

apt-get install sshpass

or if you’re running Ansible on OSX

brew install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kadwanev/bigboybrew/master/Library/Formula/sshpass.rb

Detailed installation instruction for sshpass can be found here.

The Result

Let’s run the playbook for the last time:

ansible-playbook my-playbook.yml

PLAY [all:!proxmox]

TASK [common : include_tasks]
included: check-python2.yml for 192.168.1.98, 192.168.1.100, 192.168.1.101

TASK [common : Installing python2 for Ansible]
changed: [192.168.1.98]
changed: [192.168.1.100]
changed: [192.168.1.101]


TASK [common : Reload ansible_facts]
ok: [192.168.1.100]
ok: [192.168.1.101]
ok: [192.168.1.98]

Done.