Using hosts: localhost and delegate_to causes kerberos UNREACHABLE! error?

Question

These plays work completely on (non-tower) ansible command line, tower command line, but not in the tower GUI. I've trimmed it down to 3 plays. The first 2 work in the tower GUI, but not the 3rd play. I am obviously missing something basic ... ping shows good connections

- name: works on all ansible versions 
  hosts: comp1.private.net
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
     - win_ping:

- name: works on all ansible versions
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
     ping:

- name: doesn't work in tower GUI.
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
     - win_stat:
         path: C:\blah\blah
       delegate_to: comp1.private.net

Throws fatal: [localhost] unreachable! kerberos cert obviously this means comp1

What am I missing here?? Why did it work on the command lines? Sounds like a bug.

command line used: ansible-playbook -i inventory/inventory abovePlay.yml

Answer 1

(update) Needed to add localhost to inventory prior to inventory inport. also add variable ansible_connection: local

Apparently, for the ansible command line (ansible-playbook) it has a default localhost. For the ansible GUI, it doesn't automatically import the host_vars/localhost file when using tower-manage inventory-import command.