multiline shell fails on FreeBSD

[Vladimir-csp]

ISSUE TYPE

• Bug Report

COMPONENT NAME

shell

ANSIBLE VERSION

ansible 2.4.0.0

CONFIGURATION

OS / ENVIRONMENT

FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE-p1 server
FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE-p1 client

SUMMARY

quoted multiline shell command is treated as separate commands.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

- name: get server environment
  local_action: shell env
  register: server_env

- name: log play data
  shell: |
    echo "starting new play" | logger -p user.notice -t ansible.logger.new_play
    echo "{{ server_env.stdout }}" | logger -p user.notice -t ansible.logger.server_env

EXPECTED RESULTS

server_env.stdout multiline content gets piped into logger. This worked fine in ansible 2.3. And stilll works fine in 2.4 on Linux client.

ACTUAL RESULTS

Shell module fails.

"stderr": "Unmatched '\"'.\nSSH_CONNECTION=1.2.3.4: Command not found.\n_=/usr/bin/env: Command not found.\n... etc.

Each line of server_env.stdout is treated as separate command, despite all newlines are inside quotes.

[Vladimir-csp]

OK, I figured out that this happens because shell module now uses csh instead of sh for some reason. Setting -e ansible_shell_type=sh does not help, but setting executable: /bin/sh in shell module itself is a workaround.

ansible_shell_type is unset and we have no mention of csh in ansible.cfg. Why has shell changed?

[vbotka]

As a first step I always change the login shell to /bin/sh for the user at host.

You might want to review the discussion here at
#13179

[bcoca]

I believe this was a bug introduced in 2.4.0, see if #31361 fixes this for you (will be in 2.4.2)

[Vladimir-csp]

Testing this commit would take time.
Does the new logic default to sh if unset?

[Vladimir-csp]

No longer having this trouble.