Jenkins ansible-playbook aws_ec2 unrecognized arguments: secret file error

Question

I try to integrate ansible aws_ec2 dynamic inventory into a Jenkins, but I have this kind of problem:

ansible-playbook -i aws_ec2.yaml ping-pb.yaml --private-key **** -e ansible_ssh_user=ec2-user
usage: ansible-playbook [-h] [--version] [-v] [-k]
                        [--private-key PRIVATE_KEY_FILE] [-u REMOTE_USER]
                                               ---
                        [--list-tags] [--step] [--start-at-task START_AT_TASK]
                        playbook [playbook ...]
ansible-playbook: error: unrecognized arguments: provisioning configuration@tmp/secretFiles/bbe6eeff-027e-480b-ae88/keyforjenk010422.pem

I added my .pem file into a "secret file" storage of Jenkins credentials.

This is how my pipeline looks like:

   steps { 
withCredentials([file(credentialsId: 'rmp-pem', variable: 'PRIVATE')]) { 
dir('Ansible') {
  sh "ansible-playbook -i aws_ec2.yaml ping-pb.yaml --private-key $PRIVATE -e 'ansible_ssh_user=ec2-user'" } } } } 

When I don't use the credentials but store the file in my Github repo it works fine, so the problem is.. in Jenkins? I also tried to store my private key as sshUserPrivateKey in Jenkins, but the result is the same.

Answer 1

It's because Jenkins seems to have generated a filename that contain spaces, so you'll need to quote that $PRIVATE shell variable to present it as one argument to --private-key

Due to the existing " string literal used by Groovy, you will need to escape the quote characters:

sh "ansible-playbook -i aws_ec2.yaml ping-pb.yaml --private-key \"$PRIVATE\" -e 'ansible_ssh_user=ec2-user'"

or, you can use Groovy's alternative syntax

sh """ansible-playbook -i aws_ec2.yaml ping-pb.yaml --private-key "$PRIVATE" -e 'ansible_ssh_user=ec2-user'"""

You need to use " specifically because '$PRIVATE' would not expand the shell variable