pulp.squeezer ignores environment variables

[h3krn]

The pulp.squeezer documents refer to the use of environment variables for authentication and setting the pulp server URL. I've setup a multi-container pulp instance running on a VM with podman. While trying to configure with ansible / pulp.squeezer I've run into the issue that pulp.squeezer seems to ignore the environment variables as documented here: https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/repo/published/pulp/squeezer/content/module/rpm_remote/

Am I doing something wrong? Is the documentation wrong? Or did I hit a bug?

Specifiying host, user & password in the yaml file works

$ cat pulp_rpm_remote.yml 
---
- name: Create rpm remote
  hosts: all
  become: true
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: Create a rpm remote
      pulp.squeezer.rpm_remote:
        pulp_url: http://localhost:8080
        username: admin
        password: password
        name: almalinux10-os
        url: https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/10/BaseOS/x86_64/os/
        state: present
$ export | grep SQUEEZER
$ poetry run ansible-playbook -i hosts.yml pulp_rpm_remote.yml 

PLAY [Create rpm remote] *********************************************************

TASK [Create a rpm remote] *******************************************************
changed: [packagerepo-am3-01]

PLAY RECAP ***********************************************************************
packagerepo-am3-01         : ok=1    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0   

Using environment variables does not:

$ cat pulp_rpm_remote_env.yml 
---
- name: Create rpm remote
  hosts: all
  become: true
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: Create a rpm remote
      pulp.squeezer.rpm_remote:
        name: almalinux10-os
        url: https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/10/BaseOS/x86_64/os/
        state: present
$ export SQUEEZER_PULP_URL=http://localhost:8080
$ export SQUEEZER_PASSWORD=password
$ export SQUEEZER_USERNAME=admin
$ poetry run ansible-playbook -i hosts.yml pulp_rpm_remote_env.yml 

PLAY [Create rpm remote] *********************************************************

TASK [Create a rpm remote] *******************************************************
fatal: [packagerepo-am3-01]: FAILED! => {"ansible_facts": {"discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"}, "changed": false, "msg": "missing required arguments: pulp_url"}

PLAY RECAP ***********************************************************************
packagerepo-am3-01         : ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=1    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0   

Ansible controller is Linux Mint 22.1 (ubuntu24.04) with pulp.squeezer:0.2.2

$ poetry run ansible --version
ansible [core 2.16.3]
  config file = None
  configured module search path = ['/home/harm/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /home/harm/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /usr/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.12.3 (main, Aug 14 2025, 17:47:21) [GCC 13.3.0] (/usr/bin/python3)
  jinja version = 3.1.2
  libyaml = True

Ansible target is Ubuntu 24.04

root@packagerepo-am3-01:~# pip list | grep pulp
pulp-cli             0.36.0
pulp-glue            0.36.0

[mdellweg]

The fallback is configured to these variables as you can see here:
https://github.com/pulp/squeezer/blob/develop/plugins/module_utils/pulp_glue.py#L44

Is this still how ansible works?

[h3krn]

That's exactly what I tried as you can see in my first post. Usually this is how it works for other modules/collections like opentstack or AWS. And reading the code, it suggests that it "should work". However I get errors when leaving out the parameters from the yaml file.

$ export SQUEEZER_PULP_URL=http://localhost:8080
$ export SQUEEZER_PASSWORD=password
$ export SQUEEZER_USERNAME=admin
$ poetry run ansible-playbook -i hosts.yml pulp_rpm_remote_env.yml 

I get this error

fatal: [packagerepo-am3-01]: FAILED! => {"ansible_facts": {"discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"}, "changed": false, "msg": "missing required arguments: pulp_url"}

[mdellweg]

I believe it works for me.
Can you try with (an equivalent of):
SQUEEZER_PULP_URL="http://localhost:8080" ansible -m pulp.squeezer.status localhost

[h3krn]

It seems to work only when the ansible target is localhost.
It does not work when I run it from an ansible controller with a remote ansible target.

Running ansible on the pulp host itself:

ubuntu@packagerepo-am3-01:~$ SQUEEZER_PULP_URL="http://localhost:8080" ansible -m pulp.squeezer.status localhost
[WARNING]: No inventory was parsed, only implicit localhost is available
localhost | SUCCESS => {
    "changed": false,
    "status": {
        "content_settings": {
            "content_origin": "http://pulp_content:24816",
            "content_path_prefix": "/pulp/content/"
        },
        "database_connection": {
            "connected": true
        },
        "domain_enabled": false,
        "online_api_apps": [
            {
                "last_heartbeat": "2025-09-08T09:30:45.455823Z",
                "name": "10@pulp-api",
                "versions": {
                    "ansible": "0.28.0",
                    "certguard": "3.87.0",
                    "container": "2.26.0",
<SNIP/>

Running from a remote controller with the pulp host as ansible target does not work:

$ SQUEEZER_PULP_URL="http://localhost:8080" ansible -m pulp.squeezer.status -u ubuntu -i 10.76.68.183, all
10.76.68.183 | FAILED! => {
    "ansible_facts": {
        "discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"
    },
    "changed": false,
    "msg": "missing required arguments: pulp_url"
}

Running it locally on a remote controller (ansible target is the controller), but setting the SQUEEZER_PULP_URL to point to the remote pulp install also works:

$ SQUEEZER_PULP_URL="http://10.76.68.183:8080" ansible -m pulp.squeezer.status localhost
[WARNING]: No inventory was parsed, only implicit localhost is available
localhost | SUCCESS => {
    "changed": false,
    "status": {
        "content_settings": {
            "content_origin": "http://pulp_content:24816",
            "content_path_prefix": "/pulp/content/"
        },
        "database_connection": {
            "connected": true
        },
        "domain_enabled": false,
<SNIP/>

[h3krn]

I did some more testing, it also works with connection: local, delegate_to: localhost and action_local:.

[mdellweg]

That all makes sense. The module needs to "see" the environment you need passed in.
Then again, as long as your localhost can reach the target installation, all three of these options seem to be viable. (You also do not need to install a compatible version of pulp_glue on the target machine in that case.)

Additional information: I once decided to keep the modules being actual modules in order to allow for a setup where you'd need a proxy host/vm/container/venv/... between your playbook and the target pulp installation.

[h3krn]

Yes. I guess it's how ansible is designed. And it (sort of) makes sense?

Digging into alternatives, I found the ansible environment parameter which set's the required env vars on the ansible target. I think using that with a block declaration makes most sense to me. So I don't have to set the same three parameters for every module call. And I still can set the secret from an environment variable or secret store.

---
- name: Create rpm remote
  hosts: all
  become: false
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: Set pulp.squeezer environment
      environment:
        - SQUEEZER_PULP_URL: http://localhost:8080
        - SQUEEZER_USERNAME: admin
        - SQUEEZER_PASSWORD: password
      block:
        - name: Create a rpm remote
          pulp.squeezer.rpm_remote:
            name: almalinux10-os
            url: https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/10/BaseOS/x86_64/os/
            state: present
        - <ALL OTHER PULP RESOURCES/>

[mdellweg]

The modules are defined as the pulp.squeezer action group.
I think there ought to be a way to define common defaults for action groups [0].
A bit more crude way i am using, that works with older versions of ansible is this one:
https://github.com/pulp/squeezer/blob/develop/tests/playbooks/rpm_repository.yaml#L6

[0] https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/playbook_guide/playbooks_module_defaults.html#module-defaults-groups

[h3krn]

Cool. I'll look into that as well. Thanx for helping me to see the light.
Hopefully this will help someone else in the future, running in the same issue as well