On 06/23/14 12:02, Marc Trudel wrote: > Maybe something like: > > - name: "Some task" > errorMessage: "This task might have failed because of bad network > connectivity" > curl: [...] > > Or something like that. > > I have no idea what format would be nice. But I am thinking that it > could be nice to list at least some of the potential cause of the > error which are known at the time of writing the role or playbook.
So, if I understand you correctly, you are proposing for a way to output supplementary messages as hints to what may have gone wrong when playbook/role tasks fail and possibly what can be done to overcome the error. I think this could be useful for helping users recover from playbook/role-specific error conditions that the playbook/role writer can guess, but the module writer cannot. Do you have any thoughts on the presentation format? P.S. The camel-cased "errorMessage" is surely not a good name for this. I would prefer something like 'error_hints' or 'failure_hints' that take a list of strings. > On Monday, June 23, 2014 1:03:40 AM UTC+9, Michael DeHaan wrote: > > I'm not sure how this relates to Ansible specifically. > > If you can phrase this in terms of improving Ansible error > messages in ways that would make better sense for non-technical > users, I'm interested in the discussion. > > > > > > On Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 1:18 PM, 'Petros Moisiadis' via Ansible > Project <[email protected] <javascript:>> wrote: > > On 06/21/2014 06:59 PM, Marc Trudel wrote: >> Greetings, >> >> Someone at work brought this one to me, and I thought I would >> put the question out there and see what others do/think about >> this. >> >> We have a deployment tool which early on transformed itself >> into a local development environment management tool as well >> (it provisions a VM according to the configuration and >> requirements of a project, which can me modified at any time >> using a configuration file). Works fantastically well, but >> unlike system managers, developers don't want to care about >> error cases. So for required configuration, we go check the >> data wherever a default is not possible, and print out a >> human-readable error with some details. However, it happens >> sometime that the failure is due to a bug in the playbook, or >> to some manual modifications a user has done on his machine, >> and so on. >> >> My question would be: is there a proper pattern to print out >> human-readable errors which would be oriented to a customer >> and not to someone doing deployments and operation for a >> living? I am thinking of pushing the tool itself towards less >> and less technical people (for all sorts of reasons), so for >> me it would be nice if we had a way to, say "This error >> should never happen, contact operations" or "This my be >> caused by a network connectivity problem. Check your internet >> connection, and please try again" when you try to download >> something and it fails. I can imagine that the ability to >> create generic error messages would also come handy. >> >> Cheers! >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the >> Google Groups "Ansible Project" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from >> it, send an email to [email protected] >> <javascript:>. >> To post to this group, send email to >> [email protected] <javascript:>. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ansible-project/1b315310-0be0-48d8-8a00-117815a33ecc%40googlegroups.com >> >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ansible-project/1b315310-0be0-48d8-8a00-117815a33ecc%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout >> <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. > > Hi, > > There is no single pattern for system failure causes. Systems > can fail in many ways by many causes. However, you can follow > a statistical method by analyzing the most common errors > caused by user configuration or usage and create a mapping > with possible remedies or workarounds. Make sure though that > you do not overestimate your guessing for an error cause and > do not hide any useful details. You may have historical > indications that an error was caused by user misconfiguration > when it could be actually a bug. So, I would suggest to always > have your tool create a detailed error report for your system > engineers, regardless the error. > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the > Google Groups "Ansible Project" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from > it, send an email to [email protected] > <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to > [email protected] <javascript:>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ansible-project/53A5BE4C.4070403%40yahoo.gr > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ansible-project/53A5BE4C.4070403%40yahoo.gr?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. > > > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Ansible Project" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ansible-project/102575d5-eb65-480f-b3c7-bfe3b14f3fe5%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ansible-project/102575d5-eb65-480f-b3c7-bfe3b14f3fe5%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ansible Project" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ansible-project/53A801B3.8070902%40yahoo.gr. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
