Ansible local_action on host without local ssh daemon

Question

How can I run a local command on a Ansible control server, if that control server does not have a SSH daemon running?

If I run the following playbook:

- name: Test commands
  hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: Test local action
      local_action: command echo "hello world"

I get the following error:

fatal: [localhost]: UNREACHABLE! => {"changed": false, "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: ssh: connect to host localhost port 22: Connection refused", "unreachable": true}

It seems that local_action is the same as delegate_to: 127.0.0.1, so Ansible tries to ssh to the localhost. However, there is no SSH daemon running on the local controller host (only on the remote machines).

So my immediate question is how to run a specific command from Ansible, without Ansible first trying to SSH to localhost.

---

Crucial addition, not in the original question:

My host_vars contained the following line:

ansible_connection: ssh

Answer 1

how to run a specific command from Ansible, without Ansible first trying to SSH to localhost.

connection: local is sufficient to make the tasks run in the controller without using SSH.

Try,

- name: Test commands
  hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: Test local action
      command: echo "hello world"