synchronize module (rsync) not working with podman

[Crystallic]

Hey
I got some issues by testing Ansible roles with synchronize module..

PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
molecule_debian10          : ok=36   changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=1    skipped=6    rescued=0    ignored=0

fatal: [molecule_debian10]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "msg": "synchronize uses rsync to function. rsync needs to connect to the remote host via ssh, docker client or a direct filesystem copy. This remote host is being accessed via podman instead so it cannot work."}

Is there any possibility to get the synchronize module from Ansible working with Molecule and podman? Or is there any indication of how long it will take for this feature to become available?

System Information:
Debian10/Debian11/Archlinux (maybe any OS)

molecule --version
molecule 3.3.2 using python 3.9 
    ansible:2.9.21
    containers:0.2.1 from molecule_containers
    delegated:3.3.2 from molecule
    docker:0.2.4 from molecule_docker
    podman:0.3.0 from molecule_podman

podman --version
podman version 3.0.1

[tadeboro]

This is not really a Molecule issue. The underlying problem is the synchronize module itself that does not support the podman connection plugin (https://github.com/ansible-collections/ansible.posix/blob/a03e652437434fd9f600071bf99332ef4dd04292/plugins/action/synchronize.py#L199).

So this issue should be opened in the ansible.posix repo.

[ssbarnea]

At this moment we depend on ansible-collections/ansible.posix#149 to make a new release, so we can do something require something like ansible.posix>=1.3.0 in order to close this bug.

@Crystallic I would recommend you to install ansible.posix from master and test, just to be sure that is enough in order to fix this bug.

[tadeboro]

I have a feeling that the issue is not fixed yet (ansible-collections/ansible.posix#229 (comment)).

[Crystallic]

hey
sry for the late answer.. i will try to test it in the coming week :)

[ssbarnea]

@sshnaidm Do you think that synchronize works now with podman containers? Which version of the collection do we need in order to make use of that feature? Does it work with older versions of Ansible like 2.9 ?

[sshnaidm]

Yeah, it should work with release of ansible.posix 1.3.0. If you use syncronize module from ansible.posix collection with Ansible 2.9 (like ansible.posix.synchronize) it will work. But it wasn't ported to Ansible 2.9 of course.

[ssbarnea]

At this moment we only require https://github.com/ansible-community/molecule-podman/blob/main/src/molecule_podman/driver.py#L197 but i will make a change to also require ansible.posix 1.3.0 as the module use if not of much use without syncronize, as as most users will want to rsync stuff to the tested node in prepare.yml