Contents
Ansible ships with a number of modules (called the ‘module library’) that can be executed directly on remote hosts or through Playbooks. Users can also write their own modules. These modules can control system resources, like services, packages, or files (anything really), or handle executing system commands.
Let’s review how we execute three different modules from the command line:
ansible webservers -m service -a "name=httpd state=running"
ansible webservers -m ping
ansible webservers -m command -a "/sbin/reboot -t now"
Each module supports taking arguments. Nearly all modules take key=value arguments, space delimited. Some modules take no arguments, and the command/shell modules simply take the string of the command you want to run.
From playbooks, Ansible modules are executed in a very similar way:
- name: reboot the servers
action: command /sbin/reboot -t now
All modules technically return JSON format data, though if you are using the command line or playbooks, you don’t really need to know much about that. If you’re writing your own module, you care, and this means you do not have to write modules in any particular language – you get to choose.
Modules are idempotent, meaning they will seek to avoid changes to the system unless a change needs to be made. When using Ansible playbooks, these modules can trigger ‘change events’ in the form of notifying ‘handlers’ to run additional tasks.
Let’s see what’s available in the Ansible module library, out of the box:
New in version 0.7.
Manages apt repositores (such as for Debian/Ubuntu).
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| repo | yes | The repository name/value | ||
| state | no | present |
|
The repository state |
Add nginx stable repository from PPA
apt_repository repo=ppa://nginx/stable
Add specified repository into sources.
apt_repository repo='deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu hardy partner'
This module works on Debian and Ubuntu only and requires apt-add-repository be available on destination server. To ensure this package is available use the apt module and install the python-software-properties package before using this module.
A bug in apt-add-repository always adds deb and deb-src types for repositories (see the issue on Launchpad https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/software-properties/+bug/987264), if a repo doesn't have source information (eg MongoDB repo from 10gen) the system will fail while updating repositories.
New in version 0.0.2.
Manages apt-packages (such as for Debian/Ubuntu).
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| purge | no | no |
|
Will force purging of configuration files if the module state is set to absent. |
| state | no | present |
|
Indicates the desired package state |
| force | no | no |
|
If yes, force installs/removes. |
| pkg | yes | A package name or package specifier with version, like foo or foo=1.0 |
||
| update_cache | no | no |
|
Run the equivalent of apt-get update before the operation. Can be run as part of the package installation or as a seperate step |
| default_release | no | Corresponds to the -t option for apt and sets pin priorities |
||
| install_recommends | no | no |
|
Corresponds to the --no-install-recommends option for apt, default behavior works as apt's default behavior, no does not install recommended packages. Suggested packages are never installed. |
Update repositories cache and install foo package
apt pkg=foo update-cache=yes
Remove foo package
apt pkg=foo state=removed
Install the the package foo
apt pkg=foo state=installed
Install the version '1.00' of package foo
apt pkg=foo=1.00 state=installed
Update the repository cache and update package ngnix to latest version using default release squeeze-backport
apt pkg=nginx state=latest default-release=squeeze-backports update-cache=yes
Install latest version of openjdk-6-jdk ignoring install-recomands
apt pkg=openjdk-6-jdk state=latest install-recommends=no
New in version 0.5.
Assembles a configuration file from fragments. Often a particular program will take a single configuration file and does not support a conf.d style structure where it is easy to build up the configuration from multiple sources. Assemble will take a directory of files that have already been transferred to the system, and concatenate them together to produce a destination file. Files are assembled in string sorting order. Puppet calls this idea fragments.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| dest | yes | A file to create using the concatenation of all of the source files. | ||
| src | yes | An already existing directory full of source files. | ||
| backup | no | no |
|
Create a backup file (if yes), including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly. |
| others | no | all arguments accepted by the file module also work here |
Example from Ansible Playbooks
assemble src=/etc/someapp/fragments dest=/etc/someapp/someapp.conf
New in version 0.5.
Adds or removes an SSH authorized key for a user from a remote host.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| state | no | present |
|
whether the given key should or should not be in the file |
| user | yes | Name of the user who should have access to the remote host | ||
| key | yes | the SSH public key, as a string |
Example from Ansible Playbooks
authorized_key user=charlie key="ssh-dss ASDF1234L+8BTwaRYr/rycsBF1D8e5pTxEsXHQs4iq+mZdyWqlW++L6pMiam1A8yweP+rKtgjK2httVS6GigVsuWWfOd7/sdWippefq74nppVUELHPKkaIOjJNN1zUHFoL/YMwAAAEBALnAsQN10TNGsRDe5arBsW8cTOjqLyYBcIqgPYTZW8zENErFxt7ij3fW3Jh/sCpnmy8rkS7FyK8ULX0PEy/2yDx8/5rXgMIICbRH/XaBy9Ud5bRBFVkEDu/r+rXP33wFPHjWjwvHAtfci1NRBAudQI/98DbcGQw5HmE89CjgZRo5ktkC5yu/8agEPocVjdHyZr7PaHfxZGUDGKtGRL2QzRYukCmWo1cZbMBHcI5FzImvTHS9/8B3SATjXMPgbfBuEeBwuBK5EjL+CtHY5bWs9kmYjmeo0KfUMH8hY4MAXDoKhQ7DhBPIrcjS5jPtoGxIREZjba67r6/P2XKXaCZH6Fc= charlie@example.org 2011-01-17"
Shorthand available in Ansible 0.8 and later
authorized_key user=charlie key=$FILE(/home/charlie/.ssh/id_rsa.pub)
The command module takes the command name followed by a list of space-delimited arguments. The given command will be executed on all selected nodes. It will not be processed through the shell, so variables like $HOME and operations like "<", ">", "|", and "&" will not work. As such, all paths to commands must be fully qualified
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| creates | no | a filename, when it already exists, this step will not be run. | ||
| free_form | yes | the command module takes a free form command to run | ||
| chdir | no | cd into this directory before running the command (added in Ansible 0.6) | ||
| removes | no | a filename, when it does not exist, this step will not be run. (added in Ansible 0.8) |
Example from Ansible Playbooks
command /sbin/shutdown -t now
creates, removes, and chdir can be specified after the command. For instance, if you only want to run a command if a certain file does not exist, use this.
command /usr/bin/make_database.sh arg1 arg2 creates=/path/to/database
If you want to run a command through the shell (say you are using <, >, |, etc), you actually want the shell module instead. The command module is much more secure as it's not affected by the user's environment.
The copy module copies a file on the local box to remote locations.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| dest | yes | Remote absolute path where the file should be copied to. | ||
| src | yes | Local path to a file to copy to the remote server; can be absolute or relative. | ||
| backup | no | no |
|
Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly. (added in Ansible 0.7) |
| others | no | all arguments accepted by the file module also work here |
Example from Ansible Playbooks
copy src=/srv/myfiles/foo.conf dest=/etc/foo.conf owner=foo group=foo mode=0644
Copy a new ntp.conf file into place, backing up the original if it differs from the copied version
copy src=/mine/ntp.conf dest=/etc/ntp.conf owner=root group=root mode=644 backup=yes
New in version 0.7.
Installs Python libraries, optionally in a virtualenv
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| virtualenv | no | an optional virtualenv directory path to install into. If the virtualenv does not exist, it is created automatically | ||
| name | yes | A Python library name |
Examples from Ansible Playbooks
easy_install name=pip
Install Flask (http://flask.pocoo.org/) into the specified virtualenv
easy_install name=flask virtualenv=/webapps/myapp/venv
Please note that the easy_install module can only install Python libraries. Thus this module is not able to remove libraries. It is generally recommended to use the pip module which you can first install using easy_install.
Also note that virtualenv must be installed on the remote host if the virtualenv parameter is specified.
New in version 0.2.
Runs the facter discovery program (https://github.com/puppetlabs/facter) on the remote system, returning JSON data that can be useful for inventory purposes.
Example command-line invocation
ansible www.example.net -m facter
New in version 0.2.
This module works like copy, but in reverse. It is used for fetching files from remote machines and storing them locally in a file tree, organized by hostname.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| dest | yes | A directory to save the file into. For example, if the dest directory is /backup a src file named /etc/profile on host host.example.com, would be saved into /backup/host.example.com/etc/profile |
||
| src | yes | The file on the remote system to fetch. This must be a file, not a directory. Recursive fetching may be supported in a later release. |
Example from Ansible Playbooks
fetch src=/var/log/messages dest=/home/logtree
Sets attributes of files, symlinks, and directories, or removes files/symlinks/directories. Many other modules support the same options as the file module - including copy, template, and assmeble.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| src | no | path of the file to link to (applies only to state=link). |
||
| group | no | name of the group that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown | ||
| dest | yes | defines the file being managed, unless when used with state=link, and then sets the destination to create a symbolic link to using src | ||
| selevel | no | s0 | level part of the SELinux file context. This is the MLS/MCS attribute, sometimes known as the range. _default feature works as for seuser. |
|
| seuser | no | user part of SELinux file context. Will default to system policy, if applicable. If set to _default, it will use the user portion of the the policy if available |
||
| state | no | file |
|
If directory, all immediate subdirectories will be created if they do not exist. If file, the file will NOT be created if it does not exist, see the copy or template module if you want that behavior. If link, the symbolic link will be created or changed. If absent, directories will be recursively deleted, and files or symlinks will be unlinked. |
| serole | no | role part of SELinux file context, _default feature works as for seuser. |
||
| mode | no | mode the file or directory should be, such as 0644 as would be fed to | ||
| context | no |
|
accepts only default as value. This will restore a file's SELinux context in the policy. Does nothing if no default value is available. |
|
| owner | no | name of the user that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown | ||
| force | no | force is required when changing an existing file to a directory, or a link to a directory, and so on. Use this with caution. | ||
| setype | no | type part of SELinux file context, _default feature works as for seuser. |
Example from Ansible Playbooks
file path=/etc/foo.conf owner=foo group=foo mode=0644
file src=/file/to/link/to dest=/path/to/symlink owner=foo group=foo state=link
See also copy, template, assemble
New in version 0.6.
Downloads files from HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP to the remote server. The remote server must have direct access to the remote resource.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| url | yes | HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP URL | ||
| dest | yes | absolute path of where to download the file to.If dest is a directory, the basename of the file on the remote server will be used. If a directory, thirsty=yes must also be set. | ||
| thirsty | no | no |
|
if yes, will download the file every time and replace the file if the contents change. if no, the file will only be downloaded if the destination does not exist. Generally should be yes only for small local files. prior to 0.6, acts if yes by default. (added in Ansible 0.7) |
| others | no | all arguments accepted by the file module also work here |
Example from Ansible Playbooks
get_url url=http://example.com/path/file.conf dest=/etc/foo.conf mode=0440
This module doesn't yet support configuration for proxies or passwords.
New in version 0.0.1.
Manage git checkouts of repositories to deploy files or software.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| repo | yes | git, ssh, or http protocol address of the git repository. | ||
| dest | yes | Absolute path of where the repository should be checked out to. | ||
| version | no | HEAD | What version of the repository to check out. This can be the git SHA, the literal string HEAD, branch name, or a tag name. | |
| force | no | yes |
|
(New in 0.7) If yes, any modified files in the working repository will be discarded. Prior to 0.7, this was always 'yes' and could not be disabled. |
| remote | no | origin | Name of the remote branch. |
Example git checkout from Ansible Playbooks
git repo=git://foosball.example.org/path/to/repo.git dest=/srv/checkout version=release-0.22
New in version 0.0.2.
Manage presence of groups on a host.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| state | no | present |
|
Whether the group should be present or not on the remote host. |
| gid | no | Optional GID to set for the group. | ||
| name | yes | Name of the group to manage. | ||
| system | no | no |
|
If yes, indicates that the group created is a system group. |
Example group command from Ansible Playbooks
group name=somegroup state=present
New in version 0.9.
Manage (add, remove, change) individual settings in an INI-style file without having to manage the file as a whole with, say, template or assemble. Adds missing sections if they don’t exist.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| option | no | if set (required for changing a value), this is the name of the option.May be omitted if adding/removing a whole section. | ||
| others | no | all arguments accepted by the file module also work here | ||
| dest | yes | Path to the INI-style file; this file is created if required | ||
| section | yes | Section name in INI file. This is added if state=present automatically when a single value is being set. |
||
| backup | no |
|
Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly. | |
| value | no | the string value to be associated with an option. May be omitted when removing an option. |
Ensure fav=lemonade is in section [drinks] in said file
ini_file dest=/etc/conf section=drinks option=fav value=lemonade mode=0600 backup=true
ini_file dest=/etc/anotherconf
section=drinks
option=temperature
value=cold
backup=true
While it is possible to add an option without specifying a value, this makes no sense.
New in version 0.7.
This module will search a file for a line, and ensure that it is present or absent. This is primarily useful when you want to change a single line in a file only. For other cases, see the copy or template modules.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| state | no | present |
|
Whether the line should be there or not. |
| name | yes | The file to modify | ||
| insertafter | no | EOF |
|
Used with state=present. If specified, the line will be inserted after the specified regular expression. Two special values are available; BOF for inserting the line at the beginning of the file, and EOF for inserting the line at the end of the file. |
| regexp | yes | The regular expression to look for in the file. For state=present, the pattern to replace. For state=absent, the pattern of the line to remove. |
||
| line | no | Required for state=present. The line to insert/replace into the file. Must match the value given to regexp. |
||
| backup | no | Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly. |
lineinfile name=/etc/selinux/config regexp=^SELINUX= line=SELINUX=disabled
lineinfile name=/etc/sudoers state=absent regexp="^%wheel"
New in version 0.6.
This module controls active and configured mount points in /etc/fstab.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| src | yes | device to be mounted on name. | ||
| state | yes |
|
If mounted or unmounted, the device will be actively mounted or unmounted as well as just configured in fstab. absent and present only deal with fstab. |
|
| name | yes | path to the mount point, eg: /mnt/files |
||
| dump | no | dump (see fstab(8)) | ||
| passno | no | passno (see fstab(8)) | ||
| opts | no | mount options (see fstab(8)) | ||
| fstype | yes | file-system type |
Mount DVD read-only
mount name=/mnt/dvd src=/dev/sr0 fstype=iso9660 opts=ro
New in version 0.6.
Add or remove MySQL databases from a remote host.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| state | no | present |
|
The database state |
| name | yes | name of the database to add or remove | ||
| encoding | no | Encoding mode | ||
| collation | no | Collation mode | ||
| login_user | no | The username used to authenticate with | ||
| login_host | no | localhost | Host running the database | |
| login_password | no | The password used to authenticate with |
Create a new database with name 'bobdata'
mysql_db db=bobdata state=present
Requires the MySQLdb Python package on the remote host. For Ubuntu, this is as easy as apt-get install python-mysqldb.
Both login_password and login_username are required when you are passing credentials. If none are present, the module will attempt to read the credentials from ~/.my.cnf, and finally fall back to using the MySQL default login of 'root' with no password.
New in version 0.6.
Adds or removes a user from a MySQL database.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| name | yes | name of the user (role) to add or remove | ||
| login_user | no | The username used to authenticate with | ||
| login_host | no | localhost | Host running the database | |
| host | no | localhost | the 'host' part of the MySQL username | |
| state | no | present |
|
The database state |
| login_password | no | The password used to authenticate with | ||
| password | no | set the user's password | ||
| priv | no | MySQL privileges string in the format: db.table:priv1,priv2 |
Create database user with name 'bob' and password '12345' with all database privileges
mysql_user name=bob password=12345 priv=*.*:ALL state=present
Ensure no user named 'sally' exists, also passing in the auth credentials.
mysql_user login_user=root login_password=123456 name=sally state=absent
Example privileges string format
mydb.*:INSERT,UPDATE/anotherdb.*:SELECT/yetanotherdb.*:ALL
Requires the MySQLdb Python package on the remote host. For Ubuntu, this is as easy as apt-get install python-mysqldb.
Both login_password and login_username are required when you are passing credentials. If none are present, the module will attempt to read the credentials from ~/.my.cnf, and finally fall back to using the MySQL default login of 'root' with no password.
New in version 0.7.
The nagios module has two basic functions: scheduling downtime and toggling alerts for services or hosts. All actions require the host parameter to be given explicitly. In playbooks you can use the $inventory_hostname variable to refer to the host the playbook is currently running on. You can specify multiple services at once by separating them with commas, .e.g., services=httpd,nfs,puppet. When specifying what service to handle there is a special service value, host, which will handle alerts/downtime for the host itself, e.g., service=host. This keyword may not be given with other services at the same time. Setting alerts/downtime for a host does not affect alerts/downtime for any of the services running on it. When using the nagios module you will need to specify your nagios server using the delegate_to parameter.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| action | yes |
|
Action to take. | |
| host | yes | Host to operate on in Nagios. | ||
| author | no | Ansible | Author to leave downtime comments as. - Only useable with the downtime action. |
|
| services | yes | What to manage downtime/alerts for. Separate multiple services with commas.service is an alias for services.Required option when using the downtime, enable_alerts, and disable_alerts actions. |
||
| minutes | no | 30 | Minutes to schedule downtime for.Only useable with the downtime action. |
|
| cmdfile | no | auto-detected | Path to the nagios command file (FIFO pipe).Only required if auto-detection fails. |
set 30 minutes of apache downtime
nagios action=downtime minutes=30 service=httpd host=$inventory_hostname
schedule an hour of HOST downtime
nagios action=downtime minutes=60 service=host host=$inventory_hostname
schedule downtime for a few services
nagios action=downtime services=frob,foobar,qeuz host=$inventory_hostname
enable SMART disk alerts
nagios action=enable_alerts service=smart host=$inventory_hostname
two services at once: disable httpd and nfs alerts
nagios action=disable_alerts service=httpd,nfs host=$inventory_hostname
disable HOST alerts
nagios action=disable_alerts service=host host=$inventory_hostname
silence ALL alerts
nagios action=silence host=$inventory_hostname
unsilence all alerts
nagios action=unsilence host=$inventory_hostname
New in version 0.6.
Similar to the facter module, this runs the ohai discovery program (http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Ohai) on the remote host and returns JSON inventory data. Ohai data is a bit more verbose and nested than facter.
Retrieve ohai data from all Web servers and store in one-file per host
ansible webservers -m ohai --tree=/tmp/ohaidata
A trivial test module, this module always returns ‘pong’ on successful contact. It does not make sense in playbooks, but is useful from /usr/bin/ansible
Test 'webservers' status
ansible webservers -m ping
New in version 0.7.
Manage Python library dependencies.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| virtualenv | no | An optional path to a virtualenv directory to install into | ||
| state | no | present |
|
The state of module |
| version | no | The version number to install of the Python library specified in the 'name' parameter | ||
| requirements | no | The path to a pip requirements file | ||
| name | yes | The name of a Python library to install |
Install flask python package.
pip name=flask
Install flask python package on version 0.8.
pip name=flask version=0.8
Install Flask (http://flask.pocoo.org/) into the specified virtualenv
pip name=flask virtualenv=/srv/webapps/my_app/venv
Install specified python requirements.
pip requirements=/srv/webapps/my_app/src/requirements.txt
Install specified python requirements in indicated virtualenv.
pip requirements=/srv/webapps/my_app/src/requirements.txt virtualenv=/srv/webapps/my_app/venv
Please note that http://www.virtualenv.org/, virtualenv must be installed on the remote host if the virtualenv parameter is specified.
New in version 0.6.
Add or remove PostgreSQL databases from a remote host.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| state | no | present |
|
The database state |
| name | yes | name of the database to add or remove | ||
| login_password | no | The password used to authenticate with | ||
| owner | no | Name of the role to set as owner of the database | ||
| login_user | no | The username used to authenticate with | ||
| login_host | no | localhost | Host running the database |
Create a new database with name 'acme'
postgresql_db db=acme
The default authentication assumes that you are either logging in as or sudo'ing to the postgres account on the host.
This module uses psycopg2, a Python PostgreSQL database adapter. You must ensure that psycopg2 is installed on the host before using this module. If the remote host is the PostgreSQL server (which is the default case), then PostgreSQL must also be installed on the remote host. For Ubuntu-based systems, install the postgresql, libpq-dev, and python-psycopg2 packages on the remote host before using this module.
New in version 0.6.
Add or remove PostgreSQL users (roles) from a remote host and, optionally, grant the users access to an existing database or tables. The fundamental function of the module is to create, or delete, roles from a PostgreSQL cluster. Privilege assignment, or removal, is an optional step, which works on one database at a time. This allows for the module to be called several times in the same module to modify the permissions on different databases, or to grant permissions to already existing users. A user cannot be removed untill all the privileges have been stripped from the user. In such situation, if the module tries to remove the user it will fail. To avoid this from happening the fail_on_user option signals the module to try to remove the user, but if not possible keep going; the module will report if changes happened and separately if the user was removed or not.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| name | yes | name of the user (role) to add or remove | ||
| login_user | no | postgres | User (role) used to authenticate with PostgreSQL | |
| login_host | no | localhost | Host running PostgreSQL. | |
| db | no | name of database where permissions will be granted | ||
| state | no | present |
|
The database state |
| login_password | no | Password used to authenticate with PostgreSQL | ||
| password | yes | set the user's password | ||
| fail_on_user | no | True |
|
if yes, fail when user can't be removed. Otherwise just log and continue |
| priv | no | PostgreSQL privileges string in the format: table:priv1,priv2 |
Create django user and grant access to database and products table
postgresql_user db=acme user=django password=ceec4eif7ya priv=CONNECT/products:ALL
Remove test user privileges from acme
postgresql_user db=acme user=test priv=ALL/products:ALL state=absent fail_on_user=no
Remove test user from test database and the cluster
postgresql_user db=test user=test priv=ALL state=absent
Example privileges string format
INSERT,UPDATE/table:SELECT/anothertable:ALL
The default authentication assumes that you are either logging in as or sudo'ing to the postgres account on the host.
This module uses psycopg2, a Python PostgreSQL database adapter. You must ensure that psycopg2 is installed on the host before using this module. If the remote host is the PostgreSQL server (which is the default case), then PostgreSQL must also be installed on the remote host. For Ubuntu-based systems, install the postgresql, libpq-dev, and python-psycopg2 packages on the remote host before using this module.
Executes a low-down and dirty SSH command, not going through the module subsystem. This is useful and should only be done in two cases. The first case is installing python-simplejson on older (Python 2.4 and before) hosts that need it as a dependency to run modules, since nearly all core modules require it. Another is speaking to any devices such as routers that do not have any Python installed. In any other case, using the shell or command module is much more appropriate. Arguments given to raw are run directly through the configured remote shell and only output is returned. There is no error detection or change handler support for this module
Example from /usr/bin/ansible to bootstrap a legacy python 2.4 host
ansible newhost.example.com -m raw -a "yum -y install python-simplejson"
New in version 0.1.
Controls services on remote hosts.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pattern | no | If the service does not respond to the status command, name a substring to look for as would be found in the output of the ps command as a stand-in for a status result. If the string is found, the servie will be assumed to be running. (added in Ansible 0.7) | ||
| state | no |
|
started, stopped, reloaded, restarted. Started/stopped are idempotent actions that will not run commands unless necessary. restarted will always bounce the service. reloaded will always reload. | |
| enabled | no |
|
Whether the service should start on boot. | |
| name | yes | Name of the service. |
Example action from Ansible Playbooks
service name=httpd state=started
Example action from Ansible Playbooks
service name=httpd state=stopped
Example action from Ansible Playbooks
service name=httpd state=restarted
Example action from Ansible Playbooks
service name=httpd state=reloaded
Example action from Ansible Playbooks
service name=foo pattern=/usr/bin/foo state=started
New in version 0.7.
Toggles SELinux booleans.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| state | yes |
|
Desired boolean value | |
| name | yes | Name of the boolean to configure | ||
| persistent | no |
|
Set to 'yes' if the boolean setting should survive a reboot |
Set httpd_can_network_connect SELinux flag to true and persistent
seboolean name=httpd_can_network_connect state=true persistent=yes
Not tested on any debian based system
New in version 0.7.
Configures the SELinux mode and policy. A reboot may be required after usage. Ansible will not issue this reboot but will let you know when it is required.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| policy | yes | name of the SELinux policy to use (example: 'targeted') | ||
| state | yes |
|
The SELinux mode | |
| conf | no | /etc/selinux/config | path to the SELinux configuration file, if non-standard |
selinux policy=targeted state=enforcing
selinux policy=targeted state=disabled
Not tested on any debian based system
This module is automatically called by playbooks to gather useful variables about remote hosts that can be used in playbooks. It can also be executed directly by /usr/bin/ansible to check what variables are available to a host. Ansible provides many facts about the system, automatically.
Obtain facts from all hosts and store them indexed by hostname at /tmp/facts.
ansible all -m setup -tree /tmp/facts
More ansible facts will be added with successive releases. If facter or ohai are installed, variables from these programs will also be snapshotted into the JSON file for usage in templating. These variables are prefixed with facter_ and ohai_ so it's easy to tell their source. All variables are bubbled up to the caller. Using the ansible facts and choosing to not install facter and ohai means you can avoid Ruby-dependencies on your remote systems.
New in version 0.2.
The shell module takes the command name followed by a list of arguments, space delimited. It is almost exactly like the command module but runs the command through the user’s configured shell on the remote node.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| creates | no | a filename, when it already exists, this step will NOT be run | ||
| chdir | no | cd into this directory before running the command (0.6 and later) | ||
| (free form) | no | The command module takes a free form command to run |
Execute the command in remote shell
shell somescript.sh >> somelog.txt
If you want to execute a command securely and predicably, it may be better to use the command module instead. Best practices when writing playbooks will follow the trend of using command unless shell is explicitly required. When running ad-hoc commands, use your best judgement.
New in version 0.7.
This module is really simple, so for now this checks out from the given branch of a repo at a particular SHA or tag. Latest is not supported, you should not be doing that.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| repo | yes | The subversion URL to the repository. | ||
| dest | yes | Absolute path where the repository should be deployed. | ||
| force | no | True |
|
If yes, any modified files in the working repository will be discarded. If no, this module will fail if it encounters modified files. |
Export subversion repository in a specified folder
subversion repo=svn+ssh://an.example.org/path/to/repo dest=/src/checkout
Requires subversion and grep on the client.
New in version 0.7.
Manage the state of a program or group of programs running via Supervisord
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| state | yes |
|
The state of service | |
| name | yes | The name of the supervisord program/process to manage |
Manage the state of program my_app to be in started state.
supervisorctl name=my_app state=started
Templates are processed by the Jinja2 templating language (http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/) - documentation on the template formatting can be found in the Template Designer Documentation (http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/templates/).
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| dest | yes | Location to render the template to on the remote machine. | ||
| src | yes | Path of a Jinja2 formatted template on the local server. This can be a relative or absolute path. | ||
| backup | no | no |
|
Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly. |
| others | no | all arguments accepted by the file module also work here |
Example from Ansible Playbooks
template src=/mytemplates/foo.j2 dest=/etc/file.conf owner=bin group=wheel mode=0644
Since Ansible version 0.9, templates are loaded with trim_blocks=True.
New in version 0.2.
Manage user accounts and user attributes.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| comment | no | Optionally sets the description (aka GECOS) of user account. | ||
| shell | no | Optionally set the user's shell. | ||
| force | no | no |
|
When used with state=absent, behavior is as with userdel --force. |
| name | yes | Name of the user to create, remove or modify. | ||
| createhome | no | yes |
|
Unless set to no, a home directory will be made for the user when the account is created. |
| system | no | no |
|
When creating an account, setting this to yes makes the user a system account. This setting cannot be changed on existing users. |
| remove | no | no |
|
When used with state=absent, behavior is as with userdel --remove. |
| state | no | present |
|
Whether the account should exist. When absent, removes the user account. |
| groups | no | Puts the user in this comma-delimited list of groups. | ||
| home | no | Optionally set the user's home directory. | ||
| group | no | Optionally sets the user's primary group (takes a group name). | ||
| password | no | Optionally set the user's password to this crypted value. See the user example in the github examples directory for what this looks like in a playbook. | ||
| append | no | If yes, will only add groups, not set them to just the list in groups. | ||
| uid | no | Optionally sets the UID of the user. |
New in version 0.7.
This is useful for when services are not immediately available after their init scripts return - which is true of certain Java application servers. It is also useful when starting guests with the virt module and needing to pause until they are ready.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| delay | no | number of seconds to wait before starting to poll | ||
| host | no | 127.0.0.1 | hostname or IP address to wait for | |
| port | yes | port number to poll | ||
| timeout | no | 300 | maximum number of seconds to wait for | |
| state | no | started |
|
either started, or stopped depending on whether the module should poll for the port being open or closed. |
Example from Ansible Playbooks
wait_for port=8000 delay=10
New in version 0.2.
Manages virtual machines supported by libvirt.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| state | no | no |
|
Note that there may be some lag for state requests like shutdown since these refer only to VM states. After starting a guest, it may not be immediately accessible. |
| command | no | in addition to state management, various non-idempotent commands are available. See examples | ||
| name | yes | name of the guest VM being managed |
Example from Ansible Playbooks
virt guest=alpha state=running
Example guest management with /usr/bin/ansible
ansible host -m virt -a "guest=alpha command=status"
Other non-idempotent commands are: status, pause, unpause, get_xml, autostart, freemem, list_vms, info, nodeinfo, virttype
Will install, upgrade, remove, and list packages with the yum package manager.
| parameter | required | default | choices | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| state | no | present |
|
whether to install (present, latest), or remove (absent) a package. |
| list | no | various non-idempotent commands for usage with /usr/bin/ansible and not playbooks. See examples. |
||
| name | yes | package name, or package specifier with version, like name-1.0. |
yum name=httpd state=latest
yum name=httpd state=removed
yum name=httpd state=installed
In addition to the following built-in modules, community modules are available at Ansible Resources.
See Module Development.
See also