Ansible – Enable logging

By default, Ansible logs the output of playbooks to the standard output only. In order to enable logging to a file for later review or auditing, it can be turned on by setting log_path to a path location where Ansible has a write access.

In my case, i have added the “log_path” setting in the ansible configuration file “/etc/ansible/ansible.cfg” –

# grep log_path /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
log_path = /var/log/ansible.log

Now I can view the log file to all the details on ansible runs –

root@linubuvma:/etc/ansible# ansible-playbook tasks/groupby.yml --check
PLAY [all:!swarm:!docker1] ****************************************************

TASK: [group_by key=os_{{ ansible_os_family }}] *******************************
changed: [ns2]
.....

root@linubuvma:/etc/ansible# ls -al /var/log/ansible.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4255 May 16 21:21 /var/log/ansible.log
root@linubuvma:/etc/ansible# head  /var/log/ansible.log
2015-05-16 21:21:43,732 p=22946 u=root |
2015-05-16 21:21:43,732 p=22946 u=root |  /usr/local/bin/ansible-playbook tasks/groupby.yml --check
2015-05-16 21:21:43,732 p=22946 u=root |
2015-05-16 21:21:43,734 p=22946 u=root |  ERROR: the playbook: tasks/groupby.yml could not be found
2015-05-16 21:21:48,575 p=22954 u=root |
2015-05-16 21:21:48,576 p=22954 u=root |  /usr/local/bin/ansible-playbook tasks/groupby.yml --check
2015-05-16 21:21:48,576 p=22954 u=root |
2015-05-16 21:21:48,594 p=22954 u=root |  PLAY [all:!swarm:!docker1] ****************************************************
2015-05-16 21:21:48,609 p=22954 u=root |  TASK: [group_by key=os_{{ ansible_os_family }}] *******************************
2015-05-16 21:21:48,641 p=22954 u=root |  changed: [ns2]

It logs dry-runs (–check) as well and it is smart enough not to log Password arguments.

References –

http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/intro_configuration.html#log-path