EC2 public_ip_address not always set after ec2_instance creation

[kuwv]

Overview

While creating EC2 instances with the default create playbook the "Collect instance configs" task will fail randomly. This is due to the ec2_instance (set with assign_public_ip) being created but not waiting to be populated with the public IP address. The register attribute is then undefined when that above task is run.

ansible            6.1.0
ansible-compat     2.2.0
ansible-core       2.13.2
molecule           3.5.1
molecule-ec2       0.3

I attempted downgrading from molecule 0.4.* to 0.3.5. with corresponding downgrade for molecule-ec2 also. It did not work.

This issue is obviously with ec2_instance itself but since it directly effects molecule-ec2 I submitted this issue for tracking purposes. Also, this could potentially be resolved with different designs without directly modify ec2_instance.

[Aftermath]

@kuwv did you come up with any workaround for this, such as adding an additional query after instance creation?
I seem to hit this more often than not now.

[kuwv]

@Aftermath I had to shift my attention to other work. I don't remember if there was an existing issue or if I submitted one for the ec2_instance module. LMC.

[Tjhayhay]

I think you just need to add the following to the create.yml

- name: Create ephemeral EC2 instance(s)
  amazon.aws.ec2_instance:
    state: "running"

According to this https://stackoverflow.com/a/71269582

[kuwv]

@Tjhayhay yeah it definitely seems it's just as simple as that.

One correction though is that the molecule role needs to set it correctly.

[Aftermath]

Agreed, this seems to resolve the issue.
I originally went about it a different way thinking it was a strange timing issue, as I missed the existence of 'state' during my review.
Thanks.

[danielpodwysocki]

Ran into this recently - is anyone working on a patch for the default cookiecutter? In case nobody's got the bandwidth, I'd be happy to make a PR for this as well.

[kuwv]

@danielpodwysocki sure that would be great. I've been waiting for some free time to do it but just haven't had time.

[danielpodwysocki]

@kuwv Awesome - I bumped a PR here. #70