getent – A wrapper to the unix getent utility

New in version 1.8.

Synopsis

• Runs getent against one of it’s various databases and returns information into the host’s facts, in a getent_<database> prefixed variable.

Parameters

Parameter	Choices/Defaults	Comments
database - / required		The name of a getent database supported by the target system (passwd, group, hosts, etc).
fail_key boolean	Choices: no yes ←	If a supplied key is missing this will make the task fail if yes.
key -	Default: ""	Key from which to return values from the specified database, otherwise the full contents are returned.
split -		Character used to split the database values into lists/arrays such as ':' or ' ', otherwise it will try to pick one depending on the database.

Notes

Note

• Not all databases support enumeration, check system documentation for details.

Examples

# get root user info
- getent:
    database: passwd
    key: root
- debug:
    var: getent_passwd

# get all groups
- getent:
    database: group
    split: ':'
- debug:
    var: getent_group

# get all hosts, split by tab
- getent:
    database: hosts
- debug:
    var: getent_hosts

# get http service info, no error if missing
- getent:
    database: services
    key: http
    fail_key: False
- debug:
    var: getent_services

# get user password hash (requires sudo/root)
- getent:
    database: shadow
    key: www-data
    split: ':'
- debug:
    var: getent_shadow

Status

• This module is guaranteed to have no backward incompatible interface changes going forward. [stableinterface]
• This module is maintained by the Ansible Core Team. [core]

Red Hat Support

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

Authors

• Brian Coca (@bcoca)

Hint

If you notice any issues in this documentation you can edit this document to improve it.