WARNING provided hosts list is empty only localhost is available Note that the implicit localhost does not match all

Question

I'm trying to run an ansible playbook and encountered the following warning:

 [WARNING]: provided hosts list is empty, only localhost is available. Note that the implicit localhost does not match 'all'

What do I do?

Answer 1

Hey @Sitara, 

 I just found it is because the temp path is not right. Go to your config file and change the temp path. I had to change it to the absolute path to make it work.

Hope it helps.

Comments

There are two temp paths which one do i modify?  There is an local_temp and a remote_temp.  So far i have modified the temp path to only read hosts as the tutorial I'm watching tells me.  Do I have to configure those files with the same path?

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Hi @LinuxMenace, changing just the local_temp should be good enough. Try that and let me know if it works.

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Hi,

I am getting the same eror message, what do I change on the local_temp path? where should I point it to? the current one is as below:

#local_tmp =~/.ansible/tmp

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Hey! @Naina's answer says you need to keep your local_temp path as your absolute path instead of relative path.

Answer 2

Hi ,

I also faced same issue , but after having deep observation i found that there is  mistake in my   ansible.cfg file.

[default]
inventory = ./inventory
remote_user = Bakshu

In the above i just used [default] instead of [defaults] , now issue solved .. try once...

Bakshu

Comments

I'm having same issue , i have checked the Ansible.cfg . 

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Hi@Dinesh,

If you are getting any error, then paste your inventory file here.

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Tried using default instead of defaults but its not working for me

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Hi,

Inside your /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg file you need to set your inventory file. And you have to use defaults not default as shown below.

[defaults]
inventory = <path>

Also, check that you have proper network connectivity between your systems.