community.general.homectl module – Manage user accounts with systemd-homed

Note

This module is part of the community.general collection (version 9.5.1).

You might already have this collection installed if you are using the ansible package. It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install community.general. You need further requirements to be able to use this module, see Requirements for details.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.general.homectl.

New in community.general 4.4.0

Synopsis

  • Manages a user’s home directory managed by systemd-homed.

Requirements

The below requirements are needed on the host that executes this module.

  • legacycrypt (on Python 3.13 or newer)

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

disksize

string

The intended home directory disk space.

Human readable value such as 10G, 10M, or 10B.

email

string

The email address of the user.

environment

aliases: setenv

string

String separated by comma each containing an environment variable and its value to set for the user’s login session, in a format compatible with ``putenv()``.

Any environment variable listed here is automatically set by pam_systemd for all login sessions of the user.

gid

integer

Sets the gid of the user.

If using uid homed requires the value to be the same.

Only used when a user is first created.

homedir

path

Path to use as home directory for the user.

This is the directory the user’s home directory is mounted to while the user is logged in.

This is not where the user’s data is actually stored, see imagepath for that.

Only used when a user is first created.

iconname

string

The name of an icon picked by the user, for example for the purpose of an avatar.

Should follow the semantics defined in the Icon Naming Specification.

See https://specifications.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html for specifics.

imagepath

path

Path to place the user’s home directory.

See https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/homectl.html#–image-path=PATH for more information.

Only used when a user is first created.

language

string

The preferred language/locale for the user.

This should be in a format compatible with the LANG environment variable.

location

string

A free-form location string describing the location of the user.

locked

boolean

Whether the user account should be locked or not.

Choices:

  • false

  • true

memberof

aliases: groups

string

String separated by comma each indicating a UNIX group this user shall be a member of.

Groups the user should be a member of should be supplied as comma separated list.

mountopts

string

String separated by comma each indicating mount options for a users home directory.

Valid options are nosuid, nodev or noexec.

Homed by default uses nodev and nosuid while noexec is off.

name

aliases: user, username

string / required

The user name to create, remove, or update.

notafter

integer

A time since the UNIX epoch after which the record should be considered invalid for the purpose of logging in.

notbefore

integer

A time since the UNIX epoch before which the record should be considered invalid for the purpose of logging in.

password

string

Set the user’s password to this.

Homed requires this value to be in cleartext on user creation and updating a user.

The module takes the password and generates a password hash in SHA-512 with 10000 rounds of salt generation using crypt.

See https://systemd.io/USER_RECORD/.

This is required for state=present. When an existing user is updated this is checked against the stored hash in homed.

passwordhint

string

Password hint for the given user.

realm

string

The ‘realm’ a user is defined in.

realname

aliases: comment

string

The user’s real (‘human’) name.

This can also be used to add a comment to maintain compatibility with useradd.

resize

boolean

When used with disksize this will attempt to resize the home directory immediately.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

shell

string

Shell binary to use for terminal logins of given user.

If not specified homed by default uses /bin/bash.

skeleton

aliases: skel

path

The absolute path to the skeleton directory to populate a new home directory from.

This is only used when a home directory is first created.

If not specified homed by default uses /etc/skel.

sshkeys

string

String separated by comma each listing a SSH public key that is authorized to access the account.

The keys should follow the same format as the lines in a traditional ~/.ssh/authorized_key file.

state

string

The operation to take on the user.

Choices:

  • "absent"

  • "present" ← (default)

storage

string

Indicates the storage mechanism for the user’s home directory.

If the storage type is not specified, ``homed.conf(5)`` defines which default storage to use.

Only used when a user is first created.

Choices:

  • "classic"

  • "luks"

  • "directory"

  • "subvolume"

  • "fscrypt"

  • "cifs"

timezone

string

Preferred timezone to use for the user.

Should be a tzdata compatible location string such as America/New_York.

uid

integer

Sets the UID of the user.

If using gid homed requires the value to be the same.

Only used when a user is first created.

umask

integer

Sets the umask for the user’s login sessions

Value from 0000 to 0777.

Attributes

Attribute

Support

Description

check_mode

Support: full

Can run in check_mode and return changed status prediction without modifying target.

diff_mode

Support: none

Will return details on what has changed (or possibly needs changing in check_mode), when in diff mode.

Notes

Note

  • This module requires the deprecated crypt Python module library which was removed from Python 3.13. For Python 3.13 or newer, you need to install legacycrypt.

Examples

- name: Add the user 'james'
  community.general.homectl:
    name: johnd
    password: myreallysecurepassword1!
    state: present

- name: Add the user 'alice' with a zsh shell, uid of 1000, and gid of 2000
  community.general.homectl:
    name: alice
    password: myreallysecurepassword1!
    state: present
    shell: /bin/zsh
    uid: 1000
    gid: 1000

- name: Modify an existing user 'frank' to have 10G of diskspace and resize usage now
  community.general.homectl:
    name: frank
    password: myreallysecurepassword1!
    state: present
    disksize: 10G
    resize: true

- name: Remove an existing user 'janet'
  community.general.homectl:
    name: janet
    state: absent

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key

Description

data

dictionary

A json dictionary returned from homectl inspect -j.

Returned: success

Sample: {"data": {"binding": {"e9ed2a5b0033427286b228e97c1e8343": {"fileSystemType": "btrfs", "fileSystemUuid": "7bd59491-2812-4642-a492-220c3f0c6c0b", "gid": 60268, "imagePath": "/home/james.home", "luksCipher": "aes", "luksCipherMode": "xts-plain64", "luksUuid": "7f05825a-2c38-47b4-90e1-f21540a35a81", "luksVolumeKeySize": 32, "partitionUuid": "5a906126-d3c8-4234-b230-8f6e9b427b2f", "storage": "luks", "uid": 60268}}, "diskSize": 3221225472, "disposition": "regular", "lastChangeUSec": 1641941238208691, "lastPasswordChangeUSec": 1641941238208691, "privileged": {"hashedPassword": ["$6$ov9AKni.trf76inT$tTtfSyHgbPTdUsG0CvSSQZXGqFGdHKQ9Pb6e0BTZhDmlgrL/vA5BxrXduBi8u/PCBiYUffGLIkGhApjKMK3bV."]}, "signature": [{"data": "o6zVFbymcmk4YTVaY6KPQK23YCp+VkXdGEeniZeV1pzIbFzoaZBvVLPkNKMoPAQbodY5BYfBtuy41prNL78qAg==", "key": "-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY----- MCowBQYDK2VwAyEAbs7ELeiEYBxkUQhxZ+5NGyu6J7gTtZtZ5vmIw3jowcY= -----END PUBLIC KEY----- "}], "status": {"e9ed2a5b0033427286b228e97c1e8343": {"diskCeiling": 21845405696, "diskFloor": 268435456, "diskSize": 3221225472, "service": "io.systemd.Home", "signedLocally": true, "state": "inactive"}}, "userName": "james"}}

Authors

  • James Livulpi (@jameslivulpi)