os_auth_retries variable causes a comparison type error on pam tasks

[dlouzan]

Describe the bug

When calling the role os_hardening passing the variable os_auth_retries defined in vars as part of include_role, some comparison guards in pam_debian.yml cause an exception. It appears that the variable passed via vars is a string, but the comparison guards expect an int without type casting it.

Example case:

- name: "Run dev-sec os-hardening"
  ansible.builtin.include_role:
    name: devsec.hardening.os_hardening
  vars:
    os_auth_retries: "{{ some_dict.os_auth_retries }}"

some_dict:
  os_auth_retries: 10

this produces:

fatal: [instance]: FAILED! => {"msg": "The conditional check 'os_auth_retries > 0' failed. The error was: Unexpected templating type error occurred on ({% if os_auth_retries > 0 %} True {% else %} False {% endif %}): '>' not supported between instances of 'AnsibleUnsafeText' and 'int'\n\nThe error appears to be in '/home/user/.cache/ansible-compat/f22a9c/collections/ansible_collections/devsec/hardening/roles/os_hardening/tasks/pam_debian.yml': line 20, column 3, but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.\n\nThe offending line appears to be:\n\n\n- name: Install tally2\n  ^ here\n"}

According to some ansible upstream issues, the actual role code should be the one doing the type casting to the expected type, see e.g. https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/13574#issuecomment-174639586

Indeed, manually modifying the local checkout of the os_hardening role and modifying the entries to use the following does solve the problem:

  when:
    - os_auth_retries | int > 0
...
      when:
        - os_auth_retries | int > 0
...
      when:
        - os_auth_retries | int == 0

I could provide a patch but I'd just like to get first a heads-up about the approach. Thanks!

OS / Environment

macOS 12.6

Ansible Version

ansible [core 2.12.2]
  config file = None
  configured module search path = ['/home/user/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /home/user/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /home/user/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /home/user/.local/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.10.2 (main, Feb 21 2022, 16:34:42) [Clang 13.0.0 (clang-1300.0.29.30)]
  jinja version = 3.0.3
  libyaml = True

Role Version

8.1.0

[schurzi]

nice catch. We would be happy to accept a PR for this. :)

You can create a PR anytime, we only require to Sign-off your commits and to pass our CI tests.

[dlouzan]

@schurzi I will provide a patch this week, thanks again for the awesome project, we at Siemens are big fans 😁

[dlouzan]

Actually this also affects redhat pam files, I just had not experienced it yet because the way I was disabling some settings.