Ansible Cowsay, without Cowsay

When I was installing an ansible AAP cluster, I decided that I wanted a nice message of the day, when you log into the system. Problem was that the execution environment container does not have the cowsay program installed. Trying to install it with yum and dnf failed because of failing Python modules. This turned out to be a chicken and egg problem. As I only need the Cowsay part and nothing fancy, I created an Ansible cowsay module, which returns the text supplied into a Cowsay message.

An example playbook

---
- name: Set a nice message of the day
  hosts: cowhost
  become: false

  vars:
    motd_title: The bestest Mmhoo
    motd_alias: cn01
    motd_func: Ansible AAP Control node
    motd_location: Amsterdam
    motd_vmname: EXDTONKE01

  tasks:
    - name: Get cowsay
      cowsay:
        text: "{{ motd_title }}"
      register: cowsaid
      delegate_to: localhost

    - name: Generate system information
      ansible.builtin.template:
        src: motd.j2
        dest: /etc/motd
        owner: root
        group: root
        mode: 0644
      become: true

Requirements

There are no requirements

Variables for a nice motd

Variables are per host and identify the host

• motd_title - The functionality of the host e.g. Member of the AAP cluster This is the text in the Cow balloon
• motd_alias - A host alias e.g. cn01
• motd_func - The specific functionality of this host e.g. Ansible AAP Execution node
• motd_loc - The location of the machine e.g. Amsterdam
• motd_vmname - The name of the VM as it is know in VMware e.g. EXDTONKE01

motd template

{#

This template creates a motd file with contents like below.

   ___________________________
  < Member of the AAP Cluster >      | Host name   : thor
   ---------------------------       | Host alias  : cn01
              \   ^__^               | Function    : Ansible AAP Control node
               \  (oo)\_______       | Location    : Amsterdam
                  (__)\       )\/\   | IP address  : 192.168.63.194
                      ||----w |      | VMware name : EXDTONKE01
                      ||     ||

#}

{% set ns = namespace(l=15) %}
{% for line in cowsaid['message'] %}
{% set ns.l = [ns.l, line | length, 15] | max %}
{% endfor %}

  {{ "{1:<{0}}".format(ns.l+2, cowsaid['message'][0]) }}
  {{ "{1:<{0}}".format(ns.l+2, cowsaid['message'][1]) }} | Host name   : {{ ansible_facts['hostname'] }}
  {{ "{1:<{0}}".format(ns.l+2, cowsaid['message'][2]) }} | Host alias  : {{ motd_alias | default(inventory_hostname) }}
  {{ "{1:<{0}}".format(ns.l+2, cowsaid['message'][3]) }} | Function    : {{ motd_func }}
  {{ "{1:<{0}}".format(ns.l+2, cowsaid['message'][4]) }} | Location    : {{ motd_location }}
  {{ "{1:<{0}}".format(ns.l+2, cowsaid['message'][5]) }} | IP address  : {{ ansible_facts['default_ipv4']['address'] }}
  {{ "{1:<{0}}".format(ns.l+2, cowsaid['message'][6]) }} | VMware name : {{ motd_vmname }}
  {{ "{1:<{0}}".format(ns.l+2, cowsaid['message'][7]) }}

Example output

   ___________________________
  < Member of the AAP Cluster >      | Host name   : thor
   ---------------------------       | Host alias  : localhost
              \   ^__^               | Function    : Ansible AAP Control node
               \  (oo)\_______       | Location    : Groesbeek
                  (__)\       )\/\   | IP address  : 10.20.30.40
                      ||----w |      | VMware name : EXDTONKE01
                      ||     ||

Author Information

• 2022-12-30 - Ton Kersten <@tonk> Fixed check mode. Just return a cowsaid message.

• 2022-11-18 - Ton Kersten <@tonk> Initial version