Why does the ansible remote copy not work from local - linux

Question

I just started learning ansible and writing first copy module but i am clueless why its not working.
---
- hosts: osa
tasks:
- name: Copying file to remote host
copy: src=/tmp/foo.txt dest=/tmp/bar.txt
Ran playbook but nothing happened and no error too.
# /usr/bin/ansible-playbook /home/spatel/ansible/first-playbook.yml
PLAY [osa] **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] **************************************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [10.5.1.160]
TASK [Copying file to remote host] **************************************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [10.5.1.160]
PLAY RECAP **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
10.5.1.160 : ok=2 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0
My /etc/ansible/hosts file has Remote host IP address:
[osa]
10.5.1.160
Verbose output:
# ansible-playbook -vv first-playbook.yml
ansible-playbook 2.4.1.0
config file = /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
configured module search path = [u'/root/.ansible/plugins/modules', u'/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
ansible python module location = /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible
executable location = /usr/bin/ansible-playbook
python version = 2.7.5 (default, Nov 6 2016, 00:28:07) [GCC 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-11)]
Using /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg as config file
PLAYBOOK: first-playbook.yml ********************************************************************************************************************************************************
1 plays in first-playbook.yml
PLAY [osa] **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
META: ran handlers
TASK [Copying file to remote host] **************************************************************************************************************************************************
task path: /home/spatel/ansible/first-playbook.yml:5
ok: [10.5.1.160] => {"changed": false, "checksum": "4383f040dc0303e55260bca327cc0eeb213b04b5", "failed": false, "gid": 0, "group": "root", "mode": "0644", "owner": "root", "path": "/tmp/bar.txt", "secontext": "unconfined_u:object_r:admin_home_t:s0", "size": 8, "state": "file", "uid": 0}
META: ran handlers
META: ran handlers
PLAY RECAP **************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
10.5.1.160 : ok=1 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0
UPDATE
I have noticed its copying file to localhost not remote host, this makes no sense, why is it saying in the output that it is executing the playbook on the remote host (10.5.1.160) ?????
# ls -l /tmp/bar.txt
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 16 May 24 10:45 /tmp/bar.txt

Answer 1

I had a similar problem that it was looking for a file on the remote server. You are running your tasks on remote server hosts: osa but the file is on localhost. I could solve it with delegate_to: localhost.
---
- hosts: osa
tasks:
- name: Copying file to remote host
delegate_to: localhost
copy: src=/tmp/foo.txt dest=/tmp/bar.txt
However, I had to make even first a task to get the file from localhost and then to provide it afterwards to the remote host:
- name: read files
# This needs to run on localhost, because that's where
# the keys are stored.
delegate_to: localhost
command: cat {{item}}
# Register the results of this task in a variable called
# "files"
register: files
with_fileglob:
- "/tmp/*.txt"
- name: show what was stored in the files variable
debug:
var: files
- name: Copying file to remote host
delegate_to: localhost
copy: src="{{item.stdout}}" dest=/tmp/bar.txt
with_items: "{{keys.results}}"