The field 'loop' is supposed to be a string type...

[snakelab]

Hi folks,

i am getting this error on a was-instance:

TASK [dev-sec.os-hardening : include_tasks] *******************************************************************************************
fatal: [ec2-xx-xx-xx-115.eu-central-1.compute.amazonaws.com]: FAILED! => {"failed": true, "reason": "The field 'loop' is supposed to be a string type, however the incoming data structure is a <class 'ansible.parsing.yaml.objects.AnsibleSequence'>\n\nThe error appears to have been in '/home/user/playbooks/roles/dev-sec.os-hardening/tasks/minimize_access.yml': line 3, column 3, but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.\n\nThe offending line appears to be:\n\n# Using a two-pass approach for checking directories in order to support symlinks.\n- include_tasks: find_files.yml\n  ^ here\n"}

This is the code-segment:

  1 ---
  2 # Using a two-pass approach for checking directories in order to support symlinks.
  3 - include_tasks: find_files.yml
  4   loop_control:
  5     loop_var: outer_item
  6   loop:
  7     - '/usr/local/sbin'
  8     - '/usr/local/bin'
  9     - '/usr/sbin'
 10     - '/usr/bin'
 11     - '/sbin'
 12     - '/bin'
 13     - '{{ os_env_extra_user_paths }}'

Any hint what is wrong here?

thanks.

Hartmut

[rndmh3ro]

Hey Hartmut,

what Ansible version are you running? This errors seems to indicate you're still running 2.4.0. (see: ansible/ansible#38314)

[rndmh3ro]

I'm closing this for now as I think, its a problem with the version. Feel free to reopen!

[myersCody]

Quick Work Around
For anyone stuck on a version of ansible less than 2.5, a good alternative to loop is with_items: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/plugins/lookup/items.html