debug var question

[spurs]

Hello, in this example. why auth_test.content is used instead of auth_test? is it because of return_content: yes on uri module?

- name: connect to web server with basic auth
      uri:
        url: https://serverb.lab.example.com
        validate_certs: no
        force_basic_auth: yes
        user: "{{ web_user }}"
        password: "{{ web_pass }}"
        return_content: yes
        status_code: 200
      register: auth_test

- debug:
        var: auth_test.content

+ what exactly 'force_basic_auth' is used for? 

[shura]

Hello @spurs 

1) You can use auth_test as parent structure in debug module as well. You will see some more info, if you use auth_test.content only the content child element of partent auth_test structure will be shown.

2) force_basic_auth - Use this setting in the following scenarios: You know the webservice endpoint always requires HTTP Basic authentication, and you want to speed up your requests by eliminating the first roundtrip. When this setting is `true', this module will immediately send a Basic authentication header on the first request. Opposite 'false' when this module will first try an unauthenticated request, and when the server replies with an `HTTP 401' error, it will submit the Basic authentication header.

Good luck

[spurs]

thanks for the details!

[bonnevil · Accepted solution]

So, the registered variable auth_test is going to have a more complex structure.  If you try the playbook with that as var in the debug task, you'd see that.  Here's a complete version of your play, with the basic auth stuff yanked:

- name: Let's play with register
  gather_facts: false
  hosts: localhost
  become: false

  tasks:
    - name: connect to web server
      uri:
        url: https://www.redhat.com
        validate_certs: no
        return_content: yes
        status_code: 200
      register: auth_test

    - name: Print out the content of the web page
      debug:
        var: auth_test['content']

Because you are using the uri module and have return_content: yes set, the auth_test['content'] (same as auth_test.content but safer syntax) variable will contain the content of the web page.  If that had been set to no or false, that variable won't be defined.

If you just ask for auth_test, you'll get a variable that contains as its value a dictionary of a lot of other variables and their values:

TASK [Print out the content of the web page] **********************
ok: [localhost] => {
    "auth_test": {
        "ansible_facts": {
            "discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"
        },
        "cache_control": "private, no-cache, must-revalidate",
        "content_language": "en",
        "content": -----a whole bunch of stuff here-----
[...output omitted for this example...]
        "server": "Apache",
        "status": 200,
        "strict-transport-security": "max-age=31536000, max-age=31536000",
[...and so on...]

So, the point here is that if you'd had debug print out the variable auth_test.server or auth_test['server'] you'd get the string "Apache" in my example.

[spurs]

Ok! I think I got it!

Thank you so much for your answer, now I read the questions again and it said 

[The second task uses the debug module to print the content returned from the web server.]

if it asked to print the server instead of content, then the answer should be like var: auth_test['server']?

[bonnevil]

@spursYep, you've got it!