Ansible local configuration file not recognizing key?

Question

I have a vagrant box with precise32 up and running.

I am in ~/Workspace/vagrans/ansible folder where there is a file ansible.cfg with the following entries:

[defaults]
inventory = ./dms/dev
private_key_file = /home/pkaramol/Workspace/vagrans/vagrant/precise32/.vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/private_key 

This works:

ansible -m ping all --private-key=/home/pkaramol/Workspace/vagrans/vagrant/precise32/.vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/private_key -u vagrant
tsrv1 | SUCCESS => {
    "changed": false, 
    "ping": "pong"
}

This doesn't:

ansible-playbook playbooks/testplay.yml 

PLAY ***************************************************************************

TASK [setup] *******************************************************************
fatal: [tsrv1]: UNREACHABLE! => {"changed": false, "msg": "ERROR! SSH encountered an unknown error during the connection. We recommend you re-run the command using -vvvv, which will enable SSH debugging output to help diagnose the issue", "unreachable": true}

PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
tsrv1                      : ok=0    changed=0    unreachable=1    failed=0   

Here is the playbook:

- hosts: testservers
  tasks:
    - name: just pinging
      ping:

And here is the inventory file

[testservers]
tsrv1

I must be missing sth (?) ...

Answer 1

There is no need to split the credentials between the configuration file and the playbook like you suggested.

You can use remote-user parameter in the ansible.cfg next to the private_key_file:

[defaults]
inventory = ./dms/dev
remote-user = vagrant
private_key_file = /home/pkaramol/Workspace/vagrans/vagrant/precise32/.vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/private_key

Answer 2

Just needed to set the remote_user explicitly in the playbook to vagrant

- hosts: testservers
  remote_user: vagrant
  tasks:
    - name: just pinging
      ping: