Ansible playbook to determine OS release

Question

I'm simply trying to check the version of ubuntu on all my servers. Based on this question I see that ansible has a ansible_distribution_version but this playbook does not show how I would simply just have it print out the ubuntu version, ie ubuntu 14.04, 16.04, etc

score 40 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 17 '19 at 17:52

You can do one at the time

---
- hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: yes
  become: false
  tasks:
  - name: Distribution
    debug: msg="{{ ansible_distribution }}"
  - name: Distribution version
    debug: msg="{{ ansible_distribution_version}}"
  - name: Distribution major version
    debug: msg="{{ ansible_distribution_major_version }}"

See the results:

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

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

TASK [Distribution] ********************************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
    "msg": "Ubuntu"
}

TASK [Distribution version] ************************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
    "msg": "18.04"
}

TASK [Distribution major version] ******************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
    "msg": "18"
}

PLAY RECAP *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=4    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0

Or you can use a more advance configuration iterating facts:

- hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: yes
  become: false
  tasks:
  - name: System details
    debug: msg="{{ item }}"
    with_items: 
    - "{{ ansible_distribution }}"
    - "{{ ansible_distribution_version }}"
    - "{{ ansible_distribution_major_version }}"

And a more compact results:

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

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

TASK [System details] ******************************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => (item=Ubuntu) => {
    "msg": "Ubuntu"
}
ok: [localhost] => (item=18.04) => {
    "msg": "18.04"
}
ok: [localhost] => (item=18) => {
    "msg": "18"
}

PLAY RECAP *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=2    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0

In both cases is a good practices to get the info using facts instead of shell or command modules.

response I get from ansible_distribution_major_version is "Hello world!" using ansible 2.6.0 — lobi, Nov 07 '19 at 22:10
just for completeness if someone wants to get the release name e.g. Bionic: `ansible_distribution_release` — Markus, Nov 21 '19 at 09:07

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 18 '22 at 10:51

After very research to find out Ubuntu 20.04 version then we have got released a version using ansible version-2.5.1

- hosts: localhost
  become: true
  gather_facts: yes
  tasks:
  - name: System details
    debug:
      msg: "{{ ansible_facts['lsb']['release'] }}"

  - name: ubuntu 18
    shell: echo "hello 18"
    register: ub18
    when: ansible_facts['lsb']['release'] == "18.04"

  - debug:
     msg: "{{ ub18 }}"

  - name: ubuntu 20
    shell: echo "hello 20"
    register: ub20
    when: ansible_facts['lsb']['release'] == "20.04"

  - debug:
     msg: "{{ ub20 }}"

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 18 '19 at 23:36

0

I got it, to check the OS version here is the playbook

---
- hosts: all
  gather_facts: False
  tasks:
    - name: Check Dist Version
      shell: cat /etc/os-release
      register: response

    - debug: msg="{{ response.stdout }}"

answered Jan 18 '19 at 23:36

nadermx

667
1
10
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7

It is much better if you use the ```gather_facts: True``` instead of running shell commands. – Robert Jun 17 '19 at 17:33
3

As advised by @Robert, this is not the ansible way of doing this kind of task. – Zeitounator Jun 17 '19 at 18:33
the downvoted answer (not by me) and, curiously, it is the only one that worked for me, the others fail, which seems to be related to an Ansible 2.9 bug... – xCovelus Feb 26 '21 at 12:38
They asked specifically for the ansible_distribution_version, not output from a shell command. – DevOpsSauce Apr 07 '21 at 13:57
Note that ansible already parses this file for you: `"distribution_file_path": "/etc/os-release",` – Clément Nov 14 '22 at 22:17

Ansible playbook to determine OS release

3 Answers3