Ansible install fails on RedHat 8.9

[benf33]

TASK [packages : Install build-related tools] **********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "msg": "Unsupported parameters for (ansible.legacy.dnf) module: install_recommends. Supported parameters include: allow_downgrade, allowerasing, autoremove, bugfix, cacheonly, conf_file, disable_excludes, disable_gpg_check, disable_plugin, disablerepo, download_dir, download_only, enable_plugin, enablerepo, exclude, install_repoquery, install_weak_deps, installroot, list, lock_timeout, name, nobest, releasever, security, skip_broken, sslverify, state, update_cache, update_only, use_backend, validate_certs (expire-cache, pkg)."}

$ lsb_release -d
Description: Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.9 (Ootpa)
$ ansible --version
ansible [core 2.15.3]
config file = /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
configured module search path = ['/opt/ansible/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
ansible python module location = /usr/lib/python3.11/site-packages/ansible
ansible collection location = /opt/ansible/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
executable location = /usr/bin/ansible
python version = 3.11.5 (main, Sep 22 2023, 15:34:29) [GCC 8.5.0 20210514 (Red Hat 8.5.0-20)] (/usr/bin/python3.11)
jinja version = 3.1.2
libyaml = True

[benf33]

Commenting out "install_recommends" allows to got further in the build proccess
$ sed -ir 's/install_recommends: no/# install_recommends: no/' ansible/roles/packages/tasks/main.yml

[benf33]

There are no packages named python-setuptools, zlib1g, libselinux-python on RHEL 8.9

[acroucher]

It looks like there are two things going on, the first being that Ansible's 'package' tool doesn't seem to support 'install_recommends' on RHEL. It should be fine to just comment that out, as you have done - it just tries to minimise how many packages are installed (mainly for building the Docker image).

The second thing is that it looks like some package names have changed on RHEL, so the file install/ansible/roles/get_variables/vars/RedHat.yml probably needs updating. RHEL doesn't seem to have a searchable package list online as far as I can see, so I can't easily check what these packages might be called now. Can you easily have a look using e.g. yum? I can try spinning up a RHEL VM and having a look, but my yum skills are rusty.

• python-setuptools may have been renamed python3-setuptools (as it has been on many Debian-based distros)?
• you could probably try removing zlib1g-dev from install/ansible/roles/get_variables/defaults/main.yml, as we have PETSc downloading its own zlib dependency now anyway
• I'm not sure why libselinux-python is needed (it isn't in the Ansible setup except for Red Hat and CentOS), so you could try removing it, but if it is needed, perhaps it is now called something like python3-selinux (as in Debian)?

[benf33]

What is the last version of CentOS/RH you tested the build process on?

[acroucher]

Not sure to be honest - it was done by someone else who has since left - but it was back just before Waiwera was first released in late 2019, so I'm guessing probably CentOS 8.

[benf33]

I susprised it would be CentOS 8, my bet would be CentOS 7.
It is a bit more than a few packages names:

1. mpiexec is expected to be in the path, it is not when installed by openmpi-devel
2. module is expected to be installed but never part of the required packages
3. assumption ~/.profile exists
4. application directory tree creation tasks fails

I have not been further yet so there might be more.