Ansible troubleshooting — Error 501: partial-become

How to Solve the Ansible Error 501 partial-become

Introduction

When working with Ansible, it’s essential to ensure that privilege escalation is managed effectively, especially when changing users. Ansible provides the become directive for this purpose, which allows you to execute actions as a different user, typically a superuser like root. However, Rule 501, known as “partial-become” in Ansible Lint, emphasizes the importance of using this privilege escalation mechanism consistently and explicitly.

The Purpose of Rule 501

Rule 501, “partial-become,” checks whether privilege escalation is properly activated when changing users in Ansible playbooks and tasks. To execute a task as a different user using the become_user directive, you must explicitly set become: true to ensure it works as expected.

This rule aims to make your Ansible playbooks more robust and predictable by ensuring that privilege escalation is consistently and explicitly defined at the appropriate levels, specifically the task or play level. By doing so, it minimizes the risk of errors and accidents when tasks are moved from one location to another, enhancing the reliability of your automation workflows.