ansible.builtin.lineinfile module – Manage lines in text files
Note
This module is part of ansible-core
and included in all Ansible
installations. In most cases, you can use the short
module name
lineinfile
even without specifying the collections keyword.
However, we recommend you use the Fully Qualified Collection Name (FQCN) ansible.builtin.lineinfile
for easy linking to the
module documentation and to avoid conflicting with other collections that may have
the same module name.
Synopsis
This module ensures a particular line is in a file, or replace an existing line using a back-referenced regular expression.
This is primarily useful when you want to change a single line in a file only.
See the ansible.builtin.replace module if you want to change multiple, similar lines or check ansible.builtin.blockinfile if you want to insert/update/remove a block of lines in a file. For other cases, see the ansible.builtin.copy or ansible.builtin.template modules.
Parameters
Parameter |
Comments |
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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 |
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Used with If set, This parameter changes the operation of the module slightly; If the Mutually exclusive with Choices:
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Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly. Choices:
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Used with If specified, the file will be created if it does not already exist. By default it will fail if the file is missing. Choices:
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Used with If set, Choices:
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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. |
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Used with If specified, the line will be inserted after the last match of specified regular expression. If the first match is required, use(firstmatch=yes). A special value is available; If specified regular expression has no matches, EOF will be used instead. If If regular expressions are passed to both May not be used with Choices:
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Used with If specified, the line will be inserted before the last match of specified regular expression. If the first match is required, use A value is available; If specified regular expression has no matches, the line will be inserted at the end of the file. If regular expressions are passed to both May not be used with Choices:
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The line to insert/replace into the file. Required for If |
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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, 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, If If Specifying |
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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. |
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The regular expression to look for in every line of the file. For For If the regular expression is not matched, the line will be added to the file in keeping with When modifying a line the regexp should typically match both the initial state of the line as well as its state after replacement by Uses Python regular expressions. See https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html. |
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The literal string to look for in every line of the file. This does not have to match the entire line. For For If the literal expression is not matched, the line will be added to the file in keeping with |
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The level part of the SELinux filesystem object context. This is the MLS/MCS attribute, sometimes known as the When set to |
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The role part of the SELinux filesystem object context. When set to |
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The type part of the SELinux filesystem object context. When set to |
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The user part of the SELinux filesystem object context. By default it uses the When set to |
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Whether the line should be there or not. Choices:
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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:
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The validation command to run before copying the updated file into the final destination. A temporary file path is used to validate, passed in through ‘%s’ which must be present as in the examples below. Also, the command is passed securely so shell features such as expansion and pipes will not work. For an example on how to handle more complex validation than what this option provides, see handling complex validation. |
Attributes
Attribute |
Support |
Description |
---|---|---|
Support: full |
Can run in check_mode and return changed status prediction without modifying target, if not supported the action will be skipped. |
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Support: full |
Will return details on what has changed (or possibly needs changing in check_mode), when in diff mode |
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Platform: posix |
Target OS/families that can be operated against |
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Support: full |
Uses Ansible’s strict file operation functions to ensure proper permissions and avoid data corruption |
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Support: none |
Can automatically decrypt Ansible vaulted files |
Notes
See Also
See also
- ansible.builtin.blockinfile
Insert/update/remove a text block surrounded by marker lines.
- ansible.builtin.copy
Copy files to remote locations.
- ansible.builtin.file
Manage files and file properties.
- ansible.builtin.replace
Replace all instances of a particular string in a file using a back-referenced regular expression.
- ansible.builtin.template
Template a file out to a target host.
- community.windows.win_lineinfile
Ensure a particular line is in a file, or replace an existing line using a back-referenced regular expression.
Examples
# NOTE: Before 2.3, option 'dest', 'destfile' or 'name' was used instead of 'path'
- name: Ensure SELinux is set to enforcing mode
ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
path: /etc/selinux/config
regexp: '^SELINUX='
line: SELINUX=enforcing
- name: Make sure group wheel is not in the sudoers configuration
ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
path: /etc/sudoers
state: absent
regexp: '^%wheel'
- name: Replace a localhost entry with our own
ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
path: /etc/hosts
regexp: '^127\.0\.0\.1'
line: 127.0.0.1 localhost
owner: root
group: root
mode: '0644'
- name: Replace a localhost entry searching for a literal string to avoid escaping
ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
path: /etc/hosts
search_string: '127.0.0.1'
line: 127.0.0.1 localhost
owner: root
group: root
mode: '0644'
- name: Ensure the default Apache port is 8080
ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
path: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
regexp: '^Listen '
insertafter: '^#Listen '
line: Listen 8080
- name: Ensure php extension matches new pattern
ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
path: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
search_string: '<FilesMatch ".php[45]?$">'
insertafter: '^\t<Location \/>\n'
line: ' <FilesMatch ".php[34]?$">'
- name: Ensure we have our own comment added to /etc/services
ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
path: /etc/services
regexp: '^# port for http'
insertbefore: '^www.*80/tcp'
line: '# port for http by default'
- name: Add a line to a file if the file does not exist, without passing regexp
ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
path: /tmp/testfile
line: 192.168.1.99 foo.lab.net foo
create: yes
# NOTE: Yaml requires escaping backslashes in double quotes but not in single quotes
- name: Ensure the JBoss memory settings are exactly as needed
ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
path: /opt/jboss-as/bin/standalone.conf
regexp: '^(.*)Xms(\d+)m(.*)$'
line: '\1Xms${xms}m\3'
backrefs: yes
# NOTE: Fully quoted because of the ': ' on the line. See the Gotchas in the YAML docs.
- name: Validate the sudoers file before saving
ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
path: /etc/sudoers
state: present
regexp: '^%ADMIN ALL='
line: '%ADMIN ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL'
validate: /usr/sbin/visudo -cf %s
# See https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html for further details on syntax
- name: Use backrefs with alternative group syntax to avoid conflicts with variable values
ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
path: /tmp/config
regexp: ^(host=).*
line: \g<1>{{ hostname }}
backrefs: yes