diff --git a/ansible/bootstrap.yml b/ansible/bootstrap.yml
index 51dd19ec7b26dcd36cabf8cff63c0d1e78267e84..df82f8747b4d182d96547e2689e10ff46ac8005d 100644
--- a/ansible/bootstrap.yml
+++ b/ansible/bootstrap.yml
@@ -5,9 +5,11 @@
   pre_tasks:
     - name: Require minimal ansible version
       assert:
-        that: "ansible_version.full is version_compare('2.7', '>=')"
+        that:
+          - "ansible_version.full is version_compare('2.7', '>=')"
+          - "ansible_version.full is version_compare('2.8', '<')"
         msg: >
-          "You must update Ansible to at least 2.6 to bootstrap your OAS cluster."
+          "Please use Ansible 2.7.x to bootstrap your OAS cluster."
 
     - name: Release name must start with lower case
       assert:
diff --git a/ansible/requirements.txt b/ansible/requirements.txt
index 5b90d017c8db6f4a1489967d0d550722bfb9460b..75eb868d1989249d67174423a82e8313d10215f2 100644
--- a/ansible/requirements.txt
+++ b/ansible/requirements.txt
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
 # ansible>=2.7 is needed for using the `k8s` resource
-ansible>=2.7
+# [mitogen currently doesn't work with ansible 2.8](https://github.com/dw/mitogen/issues/587)
+ansible>=2.7,<2.8
diff --git a/test/requirements.txt b/test/requirements.txt
index ad875e9dd6b4417d90741e993796859d14379d9e..aa1bb55727dffacc73b3ecf95df51610dc1f94e2 100644
--- a/test/requirements.txt
+++ b/test/requirements.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
-ansible>=2.7.0
+# ansible>=2.7 is needed for using the `k8s` resource
+# [mitogen currently doesn't work with ansible 2.8](https://github.com/dw/mitogen/issues/587)
+ansible>=2.7,<2.8
 behave-webdriver>=0.2.2
 certifi>=2019.3.9
 # Needed for ansible k8s resource