Ansible synchronize via ssh

Question

I'm trying to automate my backup to the cloud (Strato HiDrive). I configured the cloud storage to be only accessible via rsync (encrypted via ssh).

When doing this manually, it works fine.

localuser$ rsync -rltDvzu --delete -e ssh . remoteuser@rsync.cloud.com:/users/remoteuser/

I tried to convert this into a playbook:

- name: Synchronization of src on the control machine to dest on the remote hosts
  synchronize:
    src: /raid5/Pictures/
    dest: rsync://remoteuser@rsync.cloud.com:/users/remoteuser/
    recursive: yes
    private_key: /etc/ansible/roles/backup_server/files/id_rsa
    set_remote_user: no
    copy_links: no
    times: yes
    checksum: yes
    rsync_opts: -e "ssh"

• I tried to toggle set_remote_user on and off. It asks me for a password for remoteuser.
• I tried to set the ansible_user to localuser or remoteuser via set_fact. The password prompt shows up for remoteuser.

I tried to use the rsync_opts like this, since I think the private_key gets ignored:

 -e "ssh -i /etc/ansible/roles/backup_server/files/id_rsa"

The error message is:

"msg": "rsync: Failed to exec ssh -i /etc/ansible/roles/backup_server/files/id_rsa: No such file or directory"

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

Did you try 'ssh_args'? It's an undocumented option of synchronize task