Running Virtual Environment Ansible

Question

I am trying to run a virtual environment in Ansible.

It is constantly erroring out.

Here's the code:

- name: Install virtualenv
  pip: name=virtualenv
  when: virtualenvexists.stat.exists != true

- name: Create virtualenv
  sudo: true
  command: virtualenv /home/vagrant/db/venv

- name: Activate
  sudo: yes
  sudo_user: vagrant
  command: /home/vagrant/db/venv/bin/source /home/vagrant/db/venv/bin/activate

I get the error message:

{"cmd": "/home/vagrant/db/venv/bin/activate", "failed": true, "rc": 13} msg: [Errno 13] Permission denied

I've tried running this command as multiple users, and I'm also trying to figure out how to automatically run commands from the virtual instance without activating it, and I'm having no luck.

How do I run commands inside a virtual environment in Ansible?

I've also tried this with no luck:

- name: ansible_python_interpreter
  set_fact:
    ansible_python_interpreter: /home/vagrant/db/venv/bin/python

what is the command you want to run inside your virtualenv ? — frank, Oct 22 '15 at 03:48

larsks · Answer 1 · 2018-02-02T14:34:14.420

There are a number of problems here. The first is that you are creating the virtual environment as root:

- name: Create virtualenv
  sudo: true
  command: virtualenv /home/vagrant/db/venv

But you are trying to access it as the vagrant user:

- name: Activate
  sudo: yes
  sudo_user: vagrant
  command: /home/vagrant/db/venv/bin/source /home/vagrant/db/venv/bin/activate

It is likely that you want sudo_user: vagrant on both tasks.

Secondly, the source command is a shell builtin, you won't find it at /home/vagrant/db/venv/bin/source. So that command simply doesn't make sense.

Lastly, even if it did make sense, it would have no practical effect: That would modify the environment of the command module, but would have no impact on subsequent tasks. There are a few ways of dealing with that; if you are simply trying to run a command that has been installed in your virtual environment you can run that directly:

command: /home/vagrant/db/venv/bin/somecommand

That will correctly use the version of Python installed in your virtual environment. Alternatively, you can embed everything into a shell script:

shell:
  cmd: |
    source /home/vagrant/db/venv/bin/activate
    do_stuff_here

Update

For those "it doesn't work!" commenters, I present to you...a running example!

I get source not found too. Are you able to get a solution for `source not found` error? — Afolabi Olaoluwa, Feb 01 '18 at 22:12
I've updated the answer with a link to a running example showing that second script in action. — larsks, Feb 02 '18 at 14:35
Just as @MarZab, I'm also getting the `source not found`. I'm not sure yet, but it could be related with the "shell" session not been interactive. In any case, replacing `source` with `.` worked for me. — el.atomo, Jul 27 '18 at 12:47

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 04 '17 at 02:20

Take the following example of installing synapse in a virtual environment located at ~/.synapse by executing the pip module.

- pip:
    name: 'https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/tarball/master'
    virtualenv: ~/.synapse
    virtualenv_site_packages: yes
    virtualenv_python: python2.7

Then, run a command inside the newly created virtual environment. Use the chdir argument and make sure to prepend the command: with bin/

- command: bin/python -m synapse.app.homeserver --server-name {{ matrix_hostname }}
--config-path homeserver.yaml --generate-config --report-stats=yes
  args:
    chdir: ~/.synapse
    creates: homeserver.yaml

Running Virtual Environment Ansible

2 Answers2