Chapter 2 - Ansible and Python mismatch

[jamesprajs]

I converted an old Macbook Pro to Linux Mint (Linux Mint 22.1
) and tried to follow the example in Chapter two of your book and ran into a nightmare. After a long chat with ChatGPT:

Here's a summary of our discussion and the key takeaways:

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🧵 Problem Summary

You were trying to use Ansible with a Rocky Linux 8 Vagrant VM and ran into these issues:

1. ❌ Ansible failed with:
   "MODULE FAILURE: No start of json char found"
   This occurred when using modules like dnf, indicating broken Python compatibility.

2. ❌ Rocky Linux 8 default Python is 3.6 (platform-python), which:

   • Is too old for modern Ansible (v2.14+ requires Python ≥3.8)
   • Has system-specific behavior that can confuse Ansible

3. ❌ You tried installing Ansible 2.12 (compatible with Python 3.6), but:

   • Your host system uses Python 3.12
   • Ansible 2.12 is incompatible with Python 3.12, resulting in _AnsiblePathHookFinder errors

4. ❌ You tried installing Python 3.9 using apt, but Mint's base repos didn’t include it

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✅ Working Solution (Step-by-Step)

🔧 1. Install a compatible Python (3.9 or 3.10) on your host

Using the deadsnakes PPA, you can install Python 3.10 like so:

sudo apt install -y software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y python3.10 python3.10-venv

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🐍 2. Create a virtual environment for Ansible 2.12

python3.10 -m venv ~/.venvs/ansible-2.12
source ~/.venvs/ansible-2.12/bin/activate
pip install ansible-core==2.12.3

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📦 3. Run Ansible from that environment

This will allow Ansible to run against the Rocky Linux 8 VM using platform-python (3.6) without errors.

Use this in your Vagrantfile:

ansible.extra_vars = {
  ansible_python_interpreter: "/usr/libexec/platform-python"
}

And keep your Ansible version at 2.12.x, which supports Python 3.6.

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✅ Alternatives you considered:

• Installing Python 3.9 in the Rocky guest → failed due to missing dnf bindings
• Using newer Ansible → failed due to Python 3.6 on guest
• Using raw commands instead of Ansible modules → possible workaround

Here's the new working Vagrantfile that pairs perfectly with:

• Ansible 2.12 (installed in a Python 3.10 virtual environment on your host)
• Rocky Linux 8 guest
• The system Python (platform-python, Python 3.6) on the guest VM — which is fully compatible with Ansible 2.12 for DNF, systemd, etc.

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✅ Final Working Vagrantfile

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.vm.box = "geerlingguy/rockylinux8"
  config.vm.hostname = "rockyvm"
  config.vm.network "private_network", type: "dhcp"

  # Optional: allocate more resources
  config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
    vb.memory = 2048
    vb.cpus = 2
  end

  # ✅ Use the system Python that supports Ansible 2.12 modules (like dnf)
  config.vm.provision "ansible" do |ansible|
    ansible.compatibility_mode = "2.0"
    ansible.playbook = "playbook.yml"
    ansible.extra_vars = {
      ansible_python_interpreter: "/usr/libexec/platform-python"
    }
  end
end

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✅ Notes

• This assumes you've activated your Python 3.10 virtual environment and installed Ansible 2.12:

source ~/.venvs/ansible-2.12/bin/activate
ansible --version  # should show 2.12.x

• platform-python is Rocky 8's internal Python 3.6.8, which works only with Ansible 2.12 or earlier.

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✅ Matching playbook.yml Example

---
- hosts: all
  become: true
  gather_facts: true

  tasks:
    - name: Show which Python is being used
      raw: which python3
      register: python_path

    - name: Print Python path
      debug:
        var: python_path.stdout

    - name: Install chrony using dnf module
      dnf:
        name: chrony
        state: present

    - name: Ensure chronyd is running
      service:
        name: chronyd
        state: started
        enabled: yes

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