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ansibleansible-inventory
Tran Triet
Tran Triet

Reputation: 1319

Why set "ansible_python_interpreter" conf option to '/usr/bin/python3'

I want to use python 3.6 with Ansible on the managed nodes (controlling node can use whatever, I guess).

On its official doc, it says to enable python 3.6 on managed nodes, I have to set the ansible_python_interpreter configuration option to /usr/bin/python3. This option is an inventory option. I know it is possible to set this inventory variable even with dynamic inventory, but I just don't want that much complexity going into setting a variable.

So I did not set this option, instead I:

  1. Use ec2_module to automatically provision an aws ec2 ubuntu18.04 (which comes with python 3.6 at /usr/bin/python3) (I could also use raw module to install it if it's not present)
  2. Use raw module to create a symlink from /usr/bin/python to /usr/bin/python3

I tried it and it seems as long as the /usr/bin/python is set to an acceptable version of python (>= 2.7 or >= 3.6) then it should work...

Question: So what's the point of setting the ansible_python_interpreter configuration option to /usr/bin/python3?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 8418

Answers (1)

larsks
larsks

Reputation: 312243

Question: So what's the point of setting the ansible_python_interpreter configuration option to /usr/bin/python3?

By default, Ansible will always use /usr/bin/python on the remote system. You set ansible_python_interpreter to provide a path to something that isn't /usr/bin/python if you want it to use that instead. Sure, you can create a symlink instead, but:

  • How is that any easier than setting an inventory variable?
  • On many distributions, /usr/bin/python already exists and is Python 2 and is required by system tools. Replacing it will break things.
  • Even on systems that don't ship with Python 2 by default, by creating a symlink from /usr/bin/python to /usr/bin/python3 you have potentially broken anything that expects /usr/bin/python to be Python 2. That might not bite you now but it might surprise you in the future.

Upvotes: 3

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