better handling of bad type in config (#48821)

* better handling of bad type in config

 fixes #22468, fixes #22476


(cherry picked from commit 87e44a7ed1)

changelogs/fragments/deal_with_bad_config_types.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+bugfixes:
+    - better error message when bad type in config, deal with EVNAR= more gracefully https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/22470

lib/ansible/config/manager.py

@@ -430,7 +430,15 @@ class ConfigManager(object):
                             return value, origin
 
             # ensure correct type, can raise exceptoins on mismatched types
-            value = ensure_type(value, defs[config].get('type'), origin=origin)
+            try:
+                value = ensure_type(value, defs[config].get('type'), origin=origin)
+            except ValueError as e:
+                if origin.startswith('env:') and value == '':
+                    # this is empty env var for non string so we can set to default
+                    origin = 'default'
+                    value = ensure_type(defs[config].get('default'), defs[config].get('type'), origin=origin)
+                else:
+                    raise AnsibleOptionsError('Invalid type for configuration option %s: %s' % (to_native(config), to_native(e)))
 
             # deal with deprecation of the setting
             if 'deprecated' in defs[config] and origin != 'default':

test/integration/targets/config/aliases

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+shippable/posix/group1

test/integration/targets/config/runme.sh

@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+
+set -eux
+
+# ignore empty env var and use default
+# shellcheck disable=SC1007
+ANSIBLE_TIMEOUT= ansible -m ping localhost "$@"
+
+# env var is wrong type, this should be a fatal error pointing at the setting
+ANSIBLE_TIMEOUT='lola' ansible -m ping localhost "$@" 2>&1|grep 'AnsibleOptionsError: Invalid type for configuration option DEFAULT_TIMEOUT'