Create and setup GCP VM's with ansible, ssh Permission denied (publickey) - google-cloud-platform

Question

Before executing the playbook i have created a service account and given it the permissions for "Compute admin", "OS Login admin" and "service account user". Then i downloaded the json key on my machine. The service account state is "active".
On my machine i wrote a playbook to set up one gcp VM and install apache and copy there a dummy webpage.
- name: Create Compute Engine instances
hosts: localhost
gather_facts: no
vars:
gcp_project: ansible-xxxxxx
gcp_cred_kind: serviceaccount
gcp_cred_file: ~/ansible-key.json
zone: "us-central1-a"
region: "us-central1"
machine_type: "n1-standard-1"
image: "projects/ubuntu-os-cloud/global/images/family/ubuntu-1604-lts"
tasks:
- name: Create an IP address for instance
gcp_compute_address:
name: "{{ zone }}-ip"
region: "{{ region }}"
project: "{{ gcp_project }}"
service_account_file: "{{ gcp_cred_file }}"
auth_kind: "{{ gcp_cred_kind }}"
register: gce_ip
- name: Bring up the instance in the zone.
gcp_compute_instance:
name: "{{ zone }}"
machine_type: "{{ machine_type }}"
disks:
- auto_delete: true
boot: true
initialize_params:
source_image: "{{ image }}"
network_interfaces:
- access_configs:
- name: External NAT
nat_ip: "{{ gce_ip }}"
type: ONE_TO_ONE_NAT
tags:
items:
- http-server
- https-server
zone: "{{ zone }}"
project: "{{ gcp_project }}"
service_account_file: "{{ gcp_cred_file }}"
auth_kind: "{{ gcp_cred_kind }}"
register: gce
...after instantiating the VM i connect to it via ssh...
post_tasks:
- name: Wait for SSH for instance
wait_for: delay=5 sleep=5 host={{ gce_ip.address }} port=22 state=started timeout=100
- name: Save host data for first zone
add_host: hostname={{ gce_ip.address }} groupname=gce_instances_ips
the ansible-playbook never passes this step,
to call it i use ansible-playbook main.yaml --user sa_123456789 and
the given error is either a
fatal: [130.211.225.130]: UNREACHABLE! => {"changed": false, "msg": "Failed to connect to the host via ssh: sa_104318085248975873144#130.211.225.130: Permission denied (publickey).", "unreachable": true}
or a simple timeout
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "elapsed": 105, "msg": "Timeout when waiting for 130.211.225.130:22"}
In the metadata of GCE I also set enable-oslogin to TRUE.
The VM is created without any problem and is accessible by using the GCP console (GUI). If I try to access via ssh with keys generated privately the machine seems to be unreachable.
Does anyone have experience with this type of error?

Answer 1

This error usually occurs when there is no valid public and private key generated and setup.
Try any of the following approaches:
Create/edit your ansible.cfg file in your playbook directory and add a line for the full path of your key:
[defaults]
privatekeyfile = /Users/username/.ssh/private_key
It sets private key globally for all hosts in your playbook.
Add the private key to your playbook using the following line:
vars:
ansible_ssh_private_key_file: "/home/ansible/.ssh/id_rsa"
You can also define the private key to use directly in command line:
ansible-playbook -vvvv --private-key=/Users/you/.ssh/your_key playbookname.yml