[SOLVED] How to use a public keypair .pem file for ansible playbooks?

Issue

I want to use a public aws keypair .pem file for running ansible playbooks. I want to do this without changing my ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub and I can't create a new keypair from my current ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub and apply it to the ec2 instances I am trying to change.

$ ansible --version
ansible 1.9.6
  configured module search path = None

Here is my hosts file (note that my actual ip is replaced with 1.2.3.4). This is probably the issue since I need a way to set a public key variable and use that:

[all_servers:vars]
ansible_ssh_private_key_file = ./mykeypair.pem

[dashboard]
1.2.3.4 dashboard_domain=my.domain.info 

Here is my playbook:

---
- hosts: dashboard
  gather_facts: False
  remote_user: ubuntu

  tasks:
    - name: ping
      ping:

This is the command I am using to run it:

ansible-playbook -i ./hosts test.yml

It results in the following error:

fatal: [1.2.3.4] => SSH Error: Permission denied (publickey).
    while connecting to 1.2.3.4:22

There is no problem with my keypair:

$ ssh -i mykeypair.pem [email protected] 'whoami'
ubuntu

What am I doing wrong?

Solution

Ok little mistakes I guess you can't have spaces in host file variables and need to define the group you are applying the vars to. This hosts file works with it all:

[dashboard:vars]
ansible_ssh_private_key_file=./mykeypair.pem

[dashboard]
1.2.3.4 dashboard_domain=my.domain.info 

Answered By - Alex Cohen

Answer Checked By - David Goodson (WPSolving Volunteer)