Passing IP address from Terraform
env.ANSIBLE_SERVER_IP = sh(
script: 'terraform output ec2_public_ip-ansible-control-node',
returnStdout: true
).trim()
For the sake of conversation lets say this will be 999.999.999.999 (I know this is not a real IP),
if we echo "${env.ANSIBLE_SERVER_IP}" this spit out an output of "999.999.999.999".
 
Then we call the following step in the pipeline
echo "calling ansbile playbook to configure ec2 instances"
def ansible_node = [:]
ansible_node.name = "ansible-control-node"
ansible_node.host = "${env.ANSIBLE_SERVER_IP}"
ansible_node.allowAnyHosts = true // Equivalent to StrictHostKeyChecking=no

withCredentials([sshUserPrivateKey(credentialsId: 'ansible-ssh-key', keyFileVariable: 'keyfile', usernameVariable: 'user')]) {
ansible_node.user = user
ansible_node.identityFile = keyfile
echo "Running commands / scripts remotely on Ansible Server."
sshCommand remote: ansible_node, command: 'ls -la', sudo: false
 
The sshCommand will fail to execute with the following error message
[Pipeline] // node
[Pipeline] End of Pipeline
java.net.UnknownHostException: "999.999.999.999"
    at java.base/java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:229)
    at java.base/java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(SocksSocketImpl.java:392)
    at java.base/java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:609)
    at java.base/java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:558)
 
I have also tried the following and fail.
ansible_node.host = '${env.ANSIBLE_SERVER_IP}'
ansible_node.host = "$ANSIBLE_SERVER_IP"
ansible_node.host = '$ANSIBLE_SERVER_IP'
 
However, if we manually update the code to below, the step succeeds.
ansible_node.host = "999.999.999.999"
 
As of now, the resolution I have is to manually remove the " character on the resulting string, as in
ansible_node.host = env.ANSIBLE_SERVER_IP.toString().replace("\"", "")