Is it possible to have until with loop?

[nkakouros]

SUMMARY

I have a get_url task that downloads a list of files. Sometimes the server is busy and a download might fail. I would like to use until to retry the download.

ISSUE TYPE

• Documentation Report

COMPONENT NAME

ANSIBLE VERSION

ansible 2.7.0.dev0 (devel 79a020e312) last updated 2018/08/27 12:47:42 (GMT +200)
  config file = None
  configured module search path = ['/home/nikos/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /home/nikos/Projects/ansible/lib/ansible
  executable location = /home/nikos/Projects/ansible/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.7.0 (default, Jul 15 2018, 10:44:58) [GCC 8.1.1 20180531]

CONFIGURATION

OS / ENVIRONMENT

Arch linux

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

I would imagine sth like this:

- get_url:
    url: "{{ item }}"
    dest: 'dest'
  register: download
  until: download.results | map('success')
  loop: "{{ files }}"

But this obviously does not work.

[webknjaz]

So I've finally realized that you try to access a list of results, but until works with every separate task run. This works:

---
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
  - get_url:
      url: https://github.com/file/file/archive/FILE5_34.tar.gz
      dest: .
    register: download
    until: download.results | map('success')
    delay: 3

Under each loop, the until is bound to the task within/inside that loop, not to the set of results after loop evaluation. This is what you're supposed to do:

---
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
  - get_url:
      url: "{{ item }}"
      dest: .
    register: download
    until: download is succeeded
    delay: 3
    loop:
    - https://github.com/file/file/archive/FILE5_34.tar.gz
    - https://github.com/file/file/archive/FILE5_33.tar.gz

It'll retry each of downloads separately.

[webknjaz]

So we have a discussion ansible/proposals#140 and #44927 which demos the current behavior.
This issue is more of a proposal, which belongs more to the proposals repo, so if you have something to add let's move our conversation to that proposal :)