Why can't I capture an environment variable with Ansible? - linux

Question

I am trying to get and print the value of a given environment variable (ENV_VAR):
$ cat ~/.bash_profile
ENV_VAR=Updated
ENV_VAR2=Updated
$ source ~/.bash_profile && echo $ENV_VAR
Updated
I can successfully retrieve it via terminal, however by using the Ansible playbook below I get an error:
# YAML
---
- hosts: all
vars:
env_var: "{{ lookup('env','ENV_VAR') }}"
tasks:
- name: Add/Update an environment variable to the remote user's shell
lineinfile:
dest: ~/.bash_profile
regexp: '^ENV_VAR='
line: "ENV_VAR=Updated2"
- name: Get the value of the environment variable we just added
shell: source ~/.bash_profile && echo $ENV_VAR
register: env_var_updated
- name: Print the value of the environment variable
debug:
msg: "var1: {{ env_var }} - var2 {{ env_var_updated.stdout }}"
Executing:
$ ansible-playbook playbook.yml
PLAY [all] *********************************************************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] *********************************************************************************************
ok: [192.168.0.222]
TASK [Add/Update an environment variable to the remote user's shell] ***********************************************
ok: [192.168.0.222]
TASK [Get the value of the environment variable we just added] *****************************************************
fatal: [192.168.0.222]: FAILED! => {"changed": true, "cmd": "source ~/.bash_profile && echo $ENV_VAR", "delta": "0:00:00.002337", "end": "2020-12-02 10:20:21.963968", "msg": "non-zero return code", "rc": 127, "start": "2020-12-02 10:20:21.961631", "stderr": "/bin/sh: 1: source: not found", "stderr_lines": ["/bin/sh: 1: source: not found"], "stdout": "", "stdout_lines": []}
PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************************************************
192.168.0.222 : ok=2 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=1 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0
Results after execution:
$ cat ~/.bash_profile
ENV_VAR=Updated2
ENV_VAR2=Updated
$ source ~/.bash_profile && echo $ENV_VAR
Updated2
I am logged as the same user (In the terminal window and SSH for Ansible)

Answer 1

As shown by the following guide:
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.5/modules/shell_module.html
Ansible shell actually runs in /bin/sh and not /bin/bash. You can specify the shell as /bin/bash through:
- name: Get the value of the environment variable we just added
shell: source ~/.bash_profile && echo $ENV_VAR
register: env_var_updated
args:
executable: /bin/bash