Ansible fails with /bin/sh: 1: /usr/bin/python: not found

Question

I'm running into an error I've never seen before. Here is the command and the error:

$ ansible-playbook create_api.yml

PLAY [straw] ******************************************************************

GATHERING FACTS ***************************************************************
failed: [104.55.47.224] => {"failed": true, "parsed": false}
/bin/sh: 1: /usr/bin/python: not found


TASK: [typical | install required system packages] *****************************
FATAL: no hosts matched or all hosts have already failed -- aborting


PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
           to retry, use: --limit @/Users/john/create_api.retry

104.55.47.224               : ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=1

Here is the create_api.yml file:

---

- hosts: api
  remote_user: root
  roles:
    - api

And here is the hosts file:

[api]
104.55.47.224

I can remove the roles section and it won't make it to the first TASK, it will instead make it will only make it to the line /bin/sh: 1: /usr/bin/python: not found. What could be going on here?

---

NOTE: In case anyone is pinging the IP address and failing to get a response, you should know I've changed the IP address since pasting code.

EDIT python was installed locally, the problem was that it was not installed on the remote machine, which was running Ubuntu 15.04

Answer 1

I stumbled upon this error running ansible on Ubuntu 15.10 server, because it ships with Python 3.4.3 and ansible requires Python 2.

This is how my provision.yml looks now:

- hosts: my_app
  sudo: yes
  remote_user: root
  gather_facts: no
  pre_tasks:
    - name: 'install python2'
      raw: sudo apt-get -y install python

  tasks:
    - name: 'ensure user {{ project_name }} exists'
      user: name={{ project_name }} state=present

• Don't forget the -y (says yes to all questions) option with apt-get (or raw module will get stuck silently)

• gather_facts: no line is also critical (because we can't gather facts without python)

Answer 2

Ansible 2.2 features a tech preview of Python 3 support. To take advantage of this (so you don't have to install Python 2 on Ubuntu 16.04), just set the ansible_python_interpreter config option to /usr/bin/python3. This can be done on a per-host basis in your inventory file:

[db]
123.123.123.123 ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/bin/python3