How to Fix Ansible Timeout Error on Vercel

Troubleshooting Guide: Ansible Timeout Errors on Vercel

As Senior DevOps Engineers, we often leverage automation tools like Ansible to manage infrastructure and deployments. When integrating Ansible into a CI/CD pipeline, especially on serverless platforms like Vercel, encountering timeout errors can be a perplexing issue. This guide will walk you through diagnosing and resolving “Ansible Timeout Errors” specifically when Ansible is executed within the Vercel build environment or a Vercel Serverless Function.

1. The Root Cause: Why This Happens on Vercel

Vercel provides a highly optimized, ephemeral build environment and serverless functions designed for speed and efficiency. When you encounter an Ansible timeout error here, it’s typically due to one or more of the following:

  • Vercel Build Timeout: Vercel has a hard limit for build durations (e.g., 10-15 minutes for hobby plans, longer for Pro/Enterprise). If your Ansible playbook runs longer than this, the entire Vercel build will terminate, often manifesting as a generic “build failed” or “timeout” rather than a specific Ansible error.
  • Ephemeral Environment Network Latency: Vercel’s build servers are transient. Network latency between these servers and your Ansible target host(s) (e.g., your database server, a custom API, a remote VM) can fluctuate and contribute to timeouts.
  • Resource Constraints: While Vercel provides robust build environments, complex Ansible operations involving large file transfers, extensive package installations on a remote host, or lengthy API calls can consume more time or resources than implicitly allocated or expected.
  • Underlying SSH/Network Issues: Ansible heavily relies on SSH for remote execution. If the target host is slow to respond, has network connectivity issues (firewall, routing), or its SSH daemon is overloaded, Ansible’s SSH connection will time out.
  • DNS Resolution Problems: The Vercel build environment might struggle to resolve the DNS name of your target host, leading to connection delays and eventual timeouts.
  • Ansible’s Default Timeouts: Ansible itself has various default timeout settings (e.g., for SSH connections, or for specific module execution) that might be too aggressive for the conditions in an ephemeral build environment or when interacting with a slow external service.
  • Slow External API Interactions: If your Ansible playbook uses modules like uri, community.general.vercel_project, or other modules interacting with external APIs, the API response time itself can cause the Ansible task to time out if the API is slow or unresponsive.

It’s crucial to understand that Ansible is running within the Vercel environment, not against Vercel itself (unless you’re using a Vercel-specific Ansible module to manage Vercel projects, which is less common for “timeout” errors related to remote execution).

2. Quick Fix (CLI)

Before diving deep, try adjusting Ansible’s internal timeouts directly via environment variables. This is a fast way to see if simply giving Ansible more breathing room resolves the issue.

# Example: Running an Ansible playbook with increased timeouts in your Vercel build command

# Set higher connection and general task timeouts
# ANSIBLE_TIMEOUT: General timeout for tasks (seconds).
# ANSIBLE_CONNECT_TIMEOUT: Timeout for SSH connection (seconds).
# ANSIBLE_SSH_RETRIES: Number of retries for SSH connection.

ANSIBLE_TIMEOUT=60 \
ANSIBLE_CONNECT_TIMEOUT=30 \
ANSIBLE_SSH_RETRIES=5 \
ansible-playbook -i production_hosts playbook.yml

Where to put this: In your Vercel project settings, under “Build & Development Settings” -> “Build Command”. Modify your existing build command to include these environment variables.

For a Serverless Function, if Ansible is invoked programmatically, ensure these environment variables are set in the execution context of your function, or pass them as part of the Ansible run command.

Note: While increasing timeouts can resolve immediate issues, it’s a band-aid if the underlying problem is chronic network slowness or an unresponsive target. Always investigate the root cause after a quick fix.

3. Configuration Check

For a more permanent and granular solution, you’ll want to modify Ansible’s configuration.

a. ansible.cfg Modifications

You can place an ansible.cfg file at the root of your Ansible project (or specify its location with ANSIBLE_CONFIG).

# ansible.cfg
[defaults]
# Default timeout for task execution (seconds). Increase from default 10s.
timeout = 60

# Default timeout for SSH connection (seconds). Increase from default 10s.
# This applies primarily to the paramiko connection plugin.
connect_timeout = 30

# Number of times to retry an SSH connection.
ssh_retries = 5

[ssh_connection]
# For the 'ssh' connection plugin, use ansible_ssh_common_args
# This sets the ConnectTimeout for the underlying OpenSSH client.
# Also good to add ServerAliveInterval and ServerAliveCountMax for flaky connections.
# This entire line should be quoted if passed as an environment variable or cli arg.
# e.g., ansible_ssh_common_args = '-o ConnectTimeout=30 -o ServerAliveInterval=15 -o ServerAliveCountMax=3'
# In ansible.cfg, it looks like this:
# This needs to be a single line.
# Example: ssh_args = -o ControlMaster=auto -o ControlPersist=60s -o ConnectTimeout=30 -o ServerAliveInterval=15 -o ServerAliveCountMax=3
# Or directly as a parameter:
ssh_args = -o ConnectTimeout=30 -o ServerAliveInterval=15 -o ServerAliveCountMax=3

# The remote_port_timeout setting also applies to the ssh connection plugin
# for port checking, not general connection timeout.
# remote_port_timeout = 30

Important: If using ssh_args in ansible.cfg, ensure you remove ANSIBLE_SSH_COMMON_ARGS from your environment variables/CLI to avoid conflicts, or carefully merge them.

b. Playbook-level Overrides

For specific tasks that are known to be slow, you can override the timeout on a per-task basis.

- name: Perform a potentially long-running operation
  shell: |
    # Your long-running command here
    sleep 45
    echo "Task completed"
  args:
    chdir: /path/to/project
  # This 'timeout' parameter overrides the default for THIS task only
  timeout: 90 # Allow up to 90 seconds for this specific task

For tasks interacting with web services or APIs (e.g., uri module), specify the timeout parameter:

- name: Call a slow external API
  uri:
    url: "https://api.example.com/slow-service"
    method: GET
    status_code: 200
    timeout: 60 # URI module's specific timeout
  register: api_response

c. Vercel Project Build & Function Timeout Settings

While not an Ansible timeout, ensure your Vercel project’s overall build and serverless function timeouts are sufficient. If Ansible is running as part of a Build Command, Vercel’s build timeout is the ultimate limit.

  • Go to your Vercel Project Dashboard.
  • Navigate to Settings -> General.
  • Check “Build Timeout” and “Serverless Function Timeout” (for applicable environments).
  • For hobby accounts, these are usually fixed. For Pro/Enterprise, you might have options to increase them.

4. Verification

After applying any of the fixes, you need to verify if the issue is resolved.

  1. Trigger a New Deployment: Push your changes (including ansible.cfg or updated build commands) to your Git repository connected to Vercel. This will initiate a new Vercel build.

  2. Monitor Vercel Build Logs:

    • Go to your Vercel Project Dashboard.
    • Navigate to the Deployments tab.
    • Click on the latest deployment and then view the Build Logs.
    • Carefully examine the output for your Ansible playbook execution.
    • Look for:
      • Did Ansible complete all tasks?
      • Are there any new timeout errors, or different errors?
      • Did the Vercel build complete successfully, or did it hit Vercel’s overall build timeout?

  3. Local Testing with Verbosity: To further diagnose potential underlying SSH or network issues, run your Ansible playbook locally with high verbosity. This can often reveal the exact point of failure.

    ansible-playbook -i production_hosts playbook.yml -vvvv

    This will provide extensive debugging information about connection attempts, module execution, and potential network errors. If it fails locally with the same timeouts, the problem is likely with your target host or network path, not Vercel itself.

  4. Target Host Monitoring: If the issue persists, check the logs on your target host:

    • SSH Daemon Logs: (/var/log/auth.log or journalctl -u sshd on Linux) to see if connection attempts are reaching the server and why they might be failing.
    • Application Logs: If Ansible is starting or interacting with a service, check that service’s logs for errors.
    • Resource Utilization: Monitor CPU, memory, and network I/O on the target host during Ansible execution to ensure it’s not being overloaded.

By systematically addressing Ansible’s internal timeouts and considering Vercel’s platform constraints, you can effectively resolve most Ansible timeout errors in your Vercel-powered deployments. Remember, while increasing timeouts provides immediate relief, always strive to understand and mitigate the underlying causes for a robust and reliable CI/CD pipeline.

⚡ Related Troubleshooting Guides