Error message Failed to connect to the host via ssh while running ping command on host machines using Ansible

Question

I tried to connect to machines and ran a ping command on nodes using ansible. I have been getting the the below message.

command: ansible -i inventory all -m ping

centosinstance | UNREACHABLE! => {
    "changed": false, 
    "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: ssh: Could not resolve hostname centosinstance: Name or service not known\r\n", 
    "unreachable": true
}

I had stated the private key file and the remote user name in ansible.cfg file.

Comments

Are you doing this on a Linux distro?

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Yess, both host and server on Ubuntu

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Are you able to ssh into your host from the server?

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No I'm not! Do I have to first create an ssh connection?

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Yes obviously, create an ssh connection first

Answer 1

Just read the below error message:

ssh: Could not resolve hostname centosinstance: Name or service not known

Ansible can't be able to resolve the centosinstance hostname.

Modify your inventory like this:

centosinstance ansible_ssh_host=192.168.1.10
centosinstance1 ansible_ssh_host=192.168.1.11

Change the ip addresses with the ip addresses of your machines and try one more time.

Hope that help it will resolve your problem.

Answer 2

Check if you've added hostnames in the inventory file.

Answer 3

I hadn't created the ssh connection between my hosts and the servers. I created an ssh key on my server, copied that to my hosts and the error disappeared.