CentOS 5. ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/bin/python26. Still cannot use yum: module

Question

Still have to keep some CentOS5 hosts, they have yum configured to use CentOS vault repo like this https://hastebin.com/ojopevanas.ini. That works fine when use yum there on host. When however I try to use ansible for that, like:

   - name: "Install OS packages"
     yum: pkg={{item}} state=installed
     with_items: 
       - dos2unix
       - vim 

I get "msg": "python2 bindings for rpm are needed for this module. python2 yum module is needed for this module"

NOTE: the host has python26 installed next to default24 in the inventory file hostname has ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/bin/python26 next to it (otherwise ansible cannot even -m ping). Other ansible tasks works fine with this host

Answer 1

The yum module requires the rpm Python module, which is provided by the rpm-python package. On your system, this is installed for Python 2.4; you haven't installed it for Python 2.6. This is a binary module that must be compiled from source (it is part of the rpm distribution).

If you need to support CentOS 5, the easiest solution is probably to use the command module in lieu of the yum module:

- name: "Install OS packages"
  command: "yum install -y -e0 -d2 {{item}}"
  with_items: 
    - dos2unix
    - vim 

Answer 2

Since issue does not look easily resolvable with native yum: module of ansible, this is how I made it work:

- block:                                                                                                                                
    - debug: msg="Special actions for centos 5,  vault and epel repo"                                                             
    - copy:                                                                                                                             
        src: "CentOS-Vault.repo"                                                                                                        
        dest: /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Vault.repo                                                                                        
    - copy:                                                                                                                             
        src: "epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm"                                                                                              
        dest: /tmp/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm                                                                                          
    - shell: "rpm -ivh /tmp/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm"                                                                                
      ignore_errors: true                                                                                                               
      register: epelrpmres                                                                                                              
      changed_when: "'is already installed' not in epelrpmres.stderr"                                                                   
    - shell: >                                                                                                                          
        yum --disablerepo=* --enablerepo=C5*,epel* -y install                                                                           
        dos2unix moreutils vim-minimal vim-enhanced tmux tcping                                                                         
        rsync openssh-clients htop screen tar                                                                                           
      register: yumresult                                                                                                               
      changed_when: "'Nothing to do' not in yumresult.stdout"                                                                           
  when: "ansible_distribution_major_version in ['5']" 

In the hope this will help anybody else ...