Ansible task timeout max length

Question

I execute a shell: docker ps ... task in some of my playbooks. This normally works but sometimes the docker daemon hangs and docker ps does not return for ~2 hours.

How can I configure Ansible to timeout in a reasonable amount of time if docker ps does not return?

Answer 1

A task timeout is added in 2.10 release, which is useful in such scenario.

https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/33180

https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/69284

For example, below playbook fails in 2.10 version:

---
- hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
  - shell: |
      while true; do
        sleep 1
      done
    timeout: 5
...

with an error message like:

TASK [shell] **************************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "msg": "The shell action failed to execute in the expected time frame (5) and was terminated"}

Answer 2

There is no timeout-for-a-task-functionality implemented in Ansible.

You can try a workaround using asynchronous call, but for this case (clearly a kind of a bug) relying on the system might be easier and more appropriate.

See the GNU timeout command (if you run Docker, chances are the command is present on your OS):

shell: timeout 5m docker ps ...