ansible.builtin.assemble module – Assemble configuration files from fragments

Note

This module is part of ansible-core and included in all Ansible installations. In most cases, you can use the short module name assemble even without specifying the collections keyword. However, we recommend you use the Fully Qualified Collection Name (FQCN) ansible.builtin.assemble for easy linking to the module documentation and to avoid conflicting with other collections that may have the same module name.

Synopsis

• 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. ansible.builtin.assemble will take a directory of files that can be local or 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.

Note

This module has a corresponding action plugin.

Parameters

Parameter	Comments
attributes aliases: attr string	The attributes the resulting filesystem object should have. To get supported flags look at the man page for chattr on the target system. This string should contain the attributes in the same order as the one displayed by lsattr. The = operator is assumed as default, otherwise + or - operators need to be included in the string.
backup boolean	Create a backup file (if true), including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly. Choices: false ← (default) true
decrypt boolean	This option controls the auto-decryption of source files using vault. Choices: false true ← (default)
delimiter string	A delimiter to separate the file contents.
dest path / required	A file to create using the concatenation of all of the source files.
group string	Name of the group that should own the filesystem object, as would be fed to chown. When left unspecified, it uses the current group of the current user unless you are root, in which case it can preserve the previous ownership.
ignore_hidden boolean	A boolean that controls if files that start with a ‘.’ will be included or not. Choices: false ← (default) true
mode any	The permissions the resulting filesystem object should have. For those used to /usr/bin/chmod remember that modes are actually octal numbers. You must give Ansible enough information to parse them correctly. For consistent results, quote octal numbers (for example, '644' or '1777') so Ansible receives a string and can do its own conversion from string into number. Adding a leading zero (for example, 0755) works sometimes, but can fail in loops and some other circumstances. Giving Ansible a number without following either of these rules will end up with a decimal number which will have unexpected results. As of Ansible 1.8, the mode may be specified as a symbolic mode (for example, u+rwx or u=rw,g=r,o=r). If mode is not specified and the destination filesystem object does not exist, the default umask on the system will be used when setting the mode for the newly created filesystem object. If mode is not specified and the destination filesystem object does exist, the mode of the existing filesystem object will be used. Specifying mode is the best way to ensure filesystem objects are created with the correct permissions. See CVE-2020-1736 for further details.
owner string	Name of the user that should own the filesystem object, as would be fed to chown. When left unspecified, it uses the current user unless you are root, in which case it can preserve the previous ownership. Specifying a numeric username will be assumed to be a user ID and not a username. Avoid numeric usernames to avoid this confusion.
regexp string	Assemble files only if the given regular expression matches the filename. If not set, all files are assembled. Every \ (backslash) must be escaped as \\ to comply to YAML syntax. Uses Python regular expressions.
remote_src boolean	If false, it will search for src at originating/master machine. If true, it will go to the remote/target machine for the src. Choices: false true ← (default)
selevel string	The level part of the SELinux filesystem object context. This is the MLS/MCS attribute, sometimes known as the range. When set to _default, it will use the level portion of the policy if available.
serole string	The role part of the SELinux filesystem object context. When set to _default, it will use the role portion of the policy if available.
setype string	The type part of the SELinux filesystem object context. When set to _default, it will use the type portion of the policy if available.
seuser string	The user part of the SELinux filesystem object context. By default it uses the system policy, where applicable. When set to _default, it will use the user portion of the policy if available.
src path / required	An already existing directory full of source files.
unsafe_writes boolean	Influence when to use atomic operation to prevent data corruption or inconsistent reads from the target filesystem object. By default this module uses atomic operations to prevent data corruption or inconsistent reads from the target filesystem objects, but sometimes systems are configured or just broken in ways that prevent this. One example is docker mounted filesystem objects, which cannot be updated atomically from inside the container and can only be written in an unsafe manner. This option allows Ansible to fall back to unsafe methods of updating filesystem objects when atomic operations fail (however, it doesn’t force Ansible to perform unsafe writes). IMPORTANT! Unsafe writes are subject to race conditions and can lead to data corruption. Choices: false ← (default) true
validate string	The validation command to run before copying into place. The path to the file to validate is passed in via ‘%s’ which must be present as in the sshd example below. The command is passed securely so shell features like expansion and pipes won’t work.

Attributes

Attribute	Support	Description
action	Support: full	Indicates this has a corresponding action plugin so some parts of the options can be executed on the controller
async	Support: none	Supports being used with the async keyword
bypass_host_loop	Support: none	Forces a ‘global’ task that does not execute per host, this bypasses per host templating and serial, throttle and other loop considerations Conditionals will work as if run_once is being used, variables used will be from the first available host This action will not work normally outside of lockstep strategies
check_mode	Support: none	Can run in check_mode and return changed status prediction without modifying target, if not supported the action will be skipped.
diff_mode	Support: full	Will return details on what has changed (or possibly needs changing in check_mode), when in diff mode
platform	Platform: posix	Target OS/families that can be operated against
safe_file_operations	Support: full	Uses Ansible’s strict file operation functions to ensure proper permissions and avoid data corruption
vault	Support: full	Can automatically decrypt Ansible vaulted files

See Also

See also

ansible.builtin.copy

Copy files to remote locations.

ansible.builtin.template

Template a file out to a target host.

ansible.windows.win_copy

Copies files to remote locations on windows hosts.

Examples

- name: Assemble from fragments from a directory
  ansible.builtin.assemble:
    src: /etc/someapp/fragments
    dest: /etc/someapp/someapp.conf

- name: Insert the provided delimiter between fragments
  ansible.builtin.assemble:
    src: /etc/someapp/fragments
    dest: /etc/someapp/someapp.conf
    delimiter: '### START FRAGMENT ###'

- name: Assemble a new "sshd_config" file into place, after passing validation with sshd
  ansible.builtin.assemble:
    src: /etc/ssh/conf.d/
    dest: /etc/ssh/sshd_config
    validate: /usr/sbin/sshd -t -f %s

Authors

• Stephen Fromm (@sfromm)

Collection links

• Issue Tracker
• Repository (Sources)
• Communication