Install python pip modules only for use by Ansible

Question

I am using Ansible from a pipeline agent, to configure Ubuntu VMs and I would like to use the azure_rm_storageblob and mssql_script module directly on the Ubuntu VM that I am configuring. I had some issues running this, because the packaging module was not installed on the hosts.

Is there a way to install the pip modules only for use when I run Ansible (maybe a virtual environment), as I don't want to mess with the pip modules that are installed on the server for other purposes.

If this is done using something like a python virtual env, how do I make sure that this is used when I connect to the VM using Ansible?

Answer 1

You have to use virtual environments to solve that problem (link to the python doc)

First you create the environment with :

python -m venv venv

Then depending on your OS, you have to activate you virtual environment, on Unix you can do :

source venv/bin/activate

The name of you virtual env should be written in your terminal, at that point you know you are using it and not the default python env.