Issues with geerlingguy/rockylinux8 image, found a temporary fix

[IoSonoPiero]

Hello people.
After buying the book,
On my Fedora 42, I've installed:

• Ansible (with sudo dnf-y install ansible)
• Vagrant as described.
• Virtuabox 7.1.10.

Ansible version is 2.18.3

Because I'm following step by step,
I've executed in order:
vagrant box add geerlingguy/rockylinux8
vagrant init geerlingguy/rockylinux8
vagrant up

I've logged into the VM via SSH and everything is ok.

Then, I've updated the Vagrantfile adding before the last end:

# Provisioning configuration for Ansible.
  config.vm.provision "ansible" do |ansible|
    ansible.playbook = "playbook.yml"
  end

So, when I run:
vagrant provision
I got:

==> default: Running provisioner: ansible...
    default: Running ansible-playbook...
 ____________
< PLAY [all] >
 ------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

 ________________________
< TASK [Gathering Facts] >
 ------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

[WARNING]: Unhandled error in Python interpreter discovery for host default:
Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)
fatal: [default]: FAILED! => {"ansible_facts": {}, "changed": false, "failed_modules": {"ansible.legacy.setup": {"ansible_facts": {"discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python3"}, "exception": "Traceback (most recent call last):\r\n  File \"/home/vagrant/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1749941036.425196-339834-4078404289122/AnsiballZ_setup.py\", line 107, in <module>\r\n    _ansiballz_main()\r\n  File \"/home/vagrant/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1749941036.425196-339834-4078404289122/AnsiballZ_setup.py\", line 99, in _ansiballz_main\r\n    invoke_module(zipped_mod, temp_path, ANSIBALLZ_PARAMS)\r\n  File \"/home/vagrant/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1749941036.425196-339834-4078404289122/AnsiballZ_setup.py\", line 44, in invoke_module\r\n    from ansible.module_utils import basic\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap>\", line 971, in _find_and_load\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap>\", line 951, in _find_and_load_unlocked\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap>\", line 894, in _find_spec\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>\", line 1157, in find_spec\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>\", line 1131, in _get_spec\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>\", line 1112, in _legacy_get_spec\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap>\", line 441, in spec_from_loader\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>\", line 544, in spec_from_file_location\r\n  File \"/tmp/ansible_ansible.legacy.setup_payload_3sj4ifm4/ansible_ansible.legacy.setup_payload.zip/ansible/module_utils/basic.py\", line 5\r\nSyntaxError: future feature annotations is not defined\r\n", "failed": true, "module_stderr": "Shared connection to 127.0.0.1 closed.\r\n", "module_stdout": "Traceback (most recent call last):\r\n  File \"/home/vagrant/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1749941036.425196-339834-4078404289122/AnsiballZ_setup.py\", line 107, in <module>\r\n    _ansiballz_main()\r\n  File \"/home/vagrant/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1749941036.425196-339834-4078404289122/AnsiballZ_setup.py\", line 99, in _ansiballz_main\r\n    invoke_module(zipped_mod, temp_path, ANSIBALLZ_PARAMS)\r\n  File \"/home/vagrant/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1749941036.425196-339834-4078404289122/AnsiballZ_setup.py\", line 44, in invoke_module\r\n    from ansible.module_utils import basic\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap>\", line 971, in _find_and_load\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap>\", line 951, in _find_and_load_unlocked\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap>\", line 894, in _find_spec\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>\", line 1157, in find_spec\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>\", line 1131, in _get_spec\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>\", line 1112, in _legacy_get_spec\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap>\", line 441, in spec_from_loader\r\n  File \"<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>\", line 544, in spec_from_file_location\r\n  File \"/tmp/ansible_ansible.legacy.setup_payload_3sj4ifm4/ansible_ansible.legacy.setup_payload.zip/ansible/module_utils/basic.py\", line 5\r\nSyntaxError: future feature annotations is not defined\r\n", "msg": "MODULE FAILURE: No start of json char found\nSee stdout/stderr for the exact error", "rc": 1, "warnings": ["Platform linux on host default is using the discovered Python interpreter at /usr/bin/python3, but future installation of another Python interpreter could change the meaning of that path. See https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-core/2.18/reference_appendices/interpreter_discovery.html for more information."]}}, "msg": "The following modules failed to execute: ansible.legacy.setup\n"}
 ____________
< PLAY RECAP >
 ------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

default                    : ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=1    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0   

Ansible failed to complete successfully. Any error output should be
visible above. Please fix these errors and try again.

The book version is: 2.3.

I've checked for errors in the playbook.yml file and verified that the code on this GitHub is the same I'm using.

I'm available to do all the tests needed to move on, because I was so excited to go on with the book, and I'm stuck at the beginning.

I've a VM with Ubuntu on Hetzner, so I created an inventory file (hosts.ini) and tried both:

ansible-i hosts.ini example-m ping-u ubuntu
ansible-i hosts.ini example-a "free-h"-u ubuntu

and they works correctly.

I'm not an expert on Vagrant, so I'm wondering how I can resolve the issue.
If someone can help, I'll be glad.
Piero.

[IoSonoPiero]

As a temporary fix,
I've used an updated image for the VM, bento/rockylinux-9.5.

I've executed:
vagrant destroy
then
I've replaced the content of Vagrantfile with:

# -*- mode: ruby -*-
# vi: set ft=ruby :

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  config.vm.box = "bento/rockylinux-9.5"

  # Provisioning configuration for Ansible.
  config.vm.provision "ansible" do |ansible|
    ansible.playbook = "playbook.yml"
  end
end

then I've executed:

vagrant up
vagrant provision

and it's working:

< PLAY [all] >
 ------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

 ________________________
< TASK [Gathering Facts] >
 ------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

[WARNING]: Platform linux on host default is using the discovered Python
interpreter at /usr/bin/python3.9, but future installation of another Python
interpreter could change the meaning of that path. See
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-
core/2.18/reference_appendices/interpreter_discovery.html for more information.
ok: [default]
 ___________________________________________________
/ TASK [Ensure chrony (for time synchronization) is \
\ installed.]                                       /
 ---------------------------------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

ok: [default]
 __________________________________
< TASK [Ensure chrony is running.] >
 ----------------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

ok: [default]
 ____________
< PLAY RECAP >
 ------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

default                    : ok=3    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0