Unable to run top on a remote host via Ansible

Question

I have the following playbook:

---
- hosts: ESNodes
  remote_user: ihazan
  tasks:
  - name: Run Monitoring
    action: command  /tmp/monitoring/cpu_mon

The content of /tmp/monitoring/cpu_mon is as follows:

top -bn1800 -p $(ps -ef | grep elasticsearch | grep -v grep | grep -v sudo | awk '{print $2}') | grep root > /tmp/cpu_stats &

Pay attention that top is run the the background with &

When running that playbook Ansible get stuck forever on the top command:

-bash-4.1$ ansible-playbook es_playbook_run.yml -l PerfSetup -K -f 10 
sudo password: 

PLAY [ESNodes] **************************************************************** 

GATHERING FACTS *************************************************************** 
ok: [isk-vsrv643]

TASK: [Run Monitoring] ******************************************************** 

When running it via remote SSH(which is what ansible should do) it works fine:

-bash-4.1$ ssh ihazan@isk-vsrv643 'nohup /tmp/monitoring/cpu_mon'
-bash-4.1$ 

Following is the debug version of the output:

-bash-4.1$ ansible-playbook es_playbook_run.yml -l PerfSetup -K -f 10 -vvvv
sudo password: 

PLAY [ESNodes] **************************************************************** 

GATHERING FACTS *************************************************************** 
<isk-vsrv643> ESTABLISH CONNECTION FOR USER: ihazan on PORT 22 TO isk-vsrv643
<isk-vsrv643> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'mkdir -p $HOME/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1393860499.75-256362698809430 && chmod a+rx $HOME/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1393860499.75-256362698809430 && echo $HOME/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1393860499.75-256362698809430'
<isk-vsrv643> REMOTE_MODULE setup 
<isk-vsrv643> PUT /tmp/tmpZh9bYP TO /usr2/ihazan/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1393860499.75-256362698809430/setup
<isk-vsrv643> EXEC /bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/python /usr2/ihazan/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1393860499.75-256362698809430/setup; rm -rf /usr2/ihazan/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1393860499.75-256362698809430/ >/dev/null 2>&1'
ok: [isk-vsrv643]

TASK: [Run Monitoring] ******************************************************** 
<isk-vsrv643> ESTABLISH CONNECTION FOR USER: ihazan on PORT 22 TO isk-vsrv643
<isk-vsrv643> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'mkdir -p $HOME/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1393860500.32-92141081389545 && chmod a+rx $HOME/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1393860500.32-92141081389545 && echo $HOME/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1393860500.32-92141081389545'
<isk-vsrv643> REMOTE_MODULE command /tmp/monitoring/cpu_mon
<isk-vsrv643> PUT /tmp/tmp7dYRPY TO /usr2/ihazan/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1393860500.32-92141081389545/command
<isk-vsrv643> EXEC /bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/python /usr2/ihazan/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1393860500.32-92141081389545/command; rm -rf /usr2/ihazan/.ansible/tmp/ansible-1393860500.32-92141081389545/ >/dev/null 2>&1'

Thx in advance

Answer 1

Use fire and forget mode, i.e. async + poll 0 :

---
- hosts: ESNodes
  remote_user: ihazan
  tasks:
  - name: Run Monitoring
    action: command  /tmp/monitoring/cpu_mon
    async: 45
    poll: 0

Whole scoop on async is here : http://docs.ansible.com/playbooks_async.html

Good luck.