Malformed Block in Ansible

Question

I'm trying to run a playbook that gathers yum history logs, and consolidates them on a single server. I ran this playbook

---
- name: Gather yum history from all hosts
 hosts: all
 become: true
 tasks:
 - name: Run 'yum history' command
 shell: yum history
 register: yum_history_output
 - name: Save yum history to local file
 copy:
 content: |
 Host: {{ inventory_hostname }}
 ========================================
 {{ yum_history_output.stdout }}
 ========================================
 dest: "/tmp/yum_history_{{ inventory_hostname }}.log"
- name: Fetch all yum history logs to control node
 hosts: all
 gather_facts: false
 tasks:
 - name: Fetch log files to control node
 fetch:
 src: "/tmp/yum_history_{{ inventory_hostname }}.log"
 dest: "./yum_history_logs/"
 flat: yes

and, after some formatting, got a malformed block error which just seemed to put the whole playbook into a single block. What am I doing wrong?

I was given a bunch of formatting issues that I fixed, mostly deleting a lot of spaces because it didn't like the spaces in vi, but now I get a malformed block, and have no idea what to do next.

Answer 1

Write the files at the controller. Delegate the copy task to localhost. For example, given the registered data for testing

 - command: echo "yum history"
 register: yum_history_output

Create the files

 - copy:
 dest: "/tmp/yum_history_{{ inventory_hostname }}.log"
 content: |
 Host: {{ inventory_hostname }}
 ========================================
 {{ yum_history_output.stdout }}
 ========================================
 delegate_to: localhost

gives

shell> ls -1 /tmp | grep yum
yum_history_test_01.log
yum_history_test_02.log
yum_history_test_03.log

shell> cat /tmp/yum_history_test_01.log 
Host: test_01
========================================
yum history
========================================

shell> cat /tmp/yum_history_test_02.log 
Host: test_02
========================================
yum history
========================================

shell> cat /tmp/yum_history_test_03.log 
Host: test_03
========================================
yum history
========================================

---

Example of a complete playbook for testing

shell> cat pb.yml
- hosts: all
 tasks:
 - command: echo "yum history"
 register: yum_history_output
 - copy:
 dest: "/tmp/yum_history_{{ inventory_hostname }}.log"
 content: |
 Host: {{ inventory_hostname }}
 ========================================
 {{ yum_history_output.stdout }}
 ========================================
 delegate_to: localhost

shell> ansible-playbook pb.yml 
PLAY [all] **********************************************************************************************************
TASK [command] ******************************************************************************************************
changed: [test_01]
changed: [test_03]
changed: [test_02]
TASK [copy] *********************************************************************************************************
changed: [test_01 -> localhost]
changed: [test_02 -> localhost]
changed: [test_03 -> localhost]
PLAY RECAP **********************************************************************************************************
test_01 : ok=2 changed=2 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0 
test_02 : ok=2 changed=2 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0 
test_03 : ok=2 changed=2 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0