copy – Copies files to remote locations

Synopsis

  • The copy module copies a file from the local or remote machine to a location on the remote machine. Use the fetch module to copy files from remote locations to the local box. If you need variable interpolation in copied files, use the template module.
  • For Windows targets, use the win_copy module instead.

Parameters

Parameter Choices/Defaults Comments
attributes
-
added in 2.3
Attributes the file or directory 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.
= operator is assumed as default, otherwise + or - operators need to be included in the string.

aliases: attr
backup
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly.
checksum
-
added in 2.5
SHA1 checksum of the file being transferred. Used to validate that the copy of the file was successful.
If this is not provided, ansible will use the local calculated checksum of the src file.
content
-
When used instead of src, sets the contents of a file directly to the specified value. For anything advanced or with formatting also look at the template module.
decrypt
boolean
added in 2.4
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes ←
This option controls the autodecryption of source files using vault.
dest
- / required
Remote absolute path where the file should be copied to. If src is a directory, this must be a directory too. If dest is a nonexistent path and if either dest ends with "/" or src is a directory, dest is created. If src and dest are files, the parent directory of dest isn't created: the task fails if it doesn't already exist.
directory_mode
-
added in 1.5
When doing a recursive copy set the mode for the directories. If this is not set we will use the system defaults. The mode is only set on directories which are newly created, and will not affect those that already existed.
follow
boolean
added in 1.8
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
This flag indicates that filesystem links in the destination, if they exist, should be followed.
force
boolean
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes ←
the default is yes, which will replace the remote file when contents are different than the source. If no, the file will only be transferred if the destination does not exist.

aliases: thirsty
group
-
Name of the group that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
local_follow
boolean
added in 2.4
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes ←
This flag indicates that filesystem links in the source tree, if they exist, should be followed.
mode
-
Mode the file or directory should be. For those used to /usr/bin/chmod remember that modes are actually octal numbers. You must either add a leading zero so that Ansible's YAML parser knows it is an octal number (like 0644 or 01777) or quote it (like '644' or '1777') so Ansible receives a string and can do its own conversion from string into number. Giving Ansible a number without following one of these rules will end up with a decimal number which will have unexpected results. As of version 1.8, the mode may be specified as a symbolic mode (for example, u+rwx or u=rw,g=r,o=r). As of version 2.3, the mode may also be the special string preserve. preserve means that the file will be given the same permissions as the source file.
owner
-
Name of the user that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
remote_src
boolean
added in 2.0
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
If no, it will search for src at originating/master machine.
If yes it will go to the remote/target machine for the src. Default is no.
Currently remote_src does not support recursive copying.
remote_src only works with mode=preserve as of version 2.6.
selevel
-
Default:
"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.
serole
-
Role part of SELinux file context, _default feature works as for seuser.
setype
-
Type part of SELinux file context, _default feature works as for seuser.
seuser
-
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 policy if available.
src
-
Local path to a file to copy to the remote server; can be absolute or relative. If path is a directory, it is copied recursively. In this case, if path ends with "/", only inside contents of that directory are copied to destination. Otherwise, if it does not end with "/", the directory itself with all contents is copied. This behavior is similar to Rsync.
unsafe_writes
boolean
added in 2.2
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
By default this module uses atomic operations to prevent data corruption or inconsistent reads from the target files, but sometimes systems are configured or just broken in ways that prevent this. One example is docker mounted files, 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 files 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.
validate
-
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 example below. The command is passed securely so shell features like expansion and pipes won't work.

Notes

Note

  • The copy module recursively copy facility does not scale to lots (>hundreds) of files. For alternative, see synchronize module, which is a wrapper around rsync.
  • For Windows targets, use the win_copy module instead.

Examples

- name: example copying file with owner and permissions
  copy:
    src: /srv/myfiles/foo.conf
    dest: /etc/foo.conf
    owner: foo
    group: foo
    mode: 0644

- name: The same example as above, but using a symbolic mode equivalent to 0644
  copy:
    src: /srv/myfiles/foo.conf
    dest: /etc/foo.conf
    owner: foo
    group: foo
    mode: u=rw,g=r,o=r

- name: Another symbolic mode example, adding some permissions and removing others
  copy:
    src: /srv/myfiles/foo.conf
    dest: /etc/foo.conf
    owner: foo
    group: foo
    mode: u+rw,g-wx,o-rwx

- name: 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: 0644
    backup: yes

- name: Copy a new "sudoers" file into place, after passing validation with visudo
  copy:
    src: /mine/sudoers
    dest: /etc/sudoers
    validate: /usr/sbin/visudo -cf %s

- name: Copy a "sudoers" file on the remote machine for editing
  copy:
    src: /etc/sudoers
    dest: /etc/sudoers.edit
    remote_src: yes
    validate: /usr/sbin/visudo -cf %s

- name: Copy using the 'content' for inline data
  copy:
    content: '# This file was moved to /etc/other.conf'
    dest: /etc/mine.conf'

Return Values

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

Key Returned Description
backup_file
string
 changed and if backup=yes
name of backup file created

Sample:
/path/to/file.txt.2015-02-12@22:09~
checksum
string
 success
sha1 checksum of the file after running copy

Sample:
6e642bb8dd5c2e027bf21dd923337cbb4214f827
dest
string
 success
destination file/path

Sample:
/path/to/file.txt
gid
integer
 success
group id of the file, after execution

Sample:
100
group
string
 success
group of the file, after execution

Sample:
httpd
md5sum
string
 when supported
md5 checksum of the file after running copy

Sample:
2a5aeecc61dc98c4d780b14b330e3282
mode
string
 success
permissions of the target, after execution

Sample:
420
owner
string
 success
owner of the file, after execution

Sample:
httpd
size
integer
 success
size of the target, after execution

Sample:
1220
src
string
 changed
source file used for the copy on the target machine

Sample:
/home/httpd/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1423796390.97-147729857856000/source
state
string
 success
state of the target, after execution

Sample:
file
uid
integer
 success
owner id of the file, after execution

Sample:
100


Status

Red Hat Support

More information about Red Hat’s support of this module is available from this Red Hat Knowledge Base article.

Authors

  • Ansible Core Team
  • Michael DeHaan

Hint

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