apt – Manages apt-packages

Synopsis

  • Manages apt packages (such as for Debian/Ubuntu).

Requirements

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

  • python-apt (python 2)
  • python3-apt (python 3)
  • aptitude (before 2.4)

Parameters

Parameter Choices/Defaults Comments
allow_unauthenticated
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Ignore if packages cannot be authenticated. This is useful for bootstrapping environments that manage their own apt-key setup.
allow_unauthenticated is only supported with state: install/present
autoclean
boolean
added in 2.4
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
If yes, cleans the local repository of retrieved package files that can no longer be downloaded.
autoremove
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
If yes, remove unused dependency packages for all module states except build-dep. It can also be used as the only option.
Previous to version 2.4, autoclean was also an alias for autoremove, now it is its own separate command. See documentation for further information.
cache_valid_time
-
Default:
0
Update the apt cache if its older than the cache_valid_time. This option is set in seconds.
As of Ansible 2.4, if explicitly set, this sets update_cache=yes.
deb
-
Path to a .deb package on the remote machine.
If :// in the path, ansible will attempt to download deb before installing. (Version added 2.1)
Requires the xz-utils package to extract the control file of the deb package to install.
default_release
-
Corresponds to the -t option for apt and sets pin priorities
dpkg_options
-
Default:
"force-confdef,force-confold"
Add dpkg options to apt command. Defaults to '-o "Dpkg::Options::=--force-confdef" -o "Dpkg::Options::=--force-confold"'
Options should be supplied as comma separated list
force
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Corresponds to the --force-yes to apt-get and implies allow_unauthenticated: yes
This option will disable checking both the packages' signatures and the certificates of the web servers they are downloaded from.
This option *is not* the equivalent of passing the -f flag to apt-get on the command line
**This is a destructive operation with the potential to destroy your system, and it should almost never be used.** Please also see man apt-get for more information.
force_apt_get
boolean
added in 2.4
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Force usage of apt-get instead of aptitude
install_recommends
boolean
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
Corresponds to the --no-install-recommends option for apt. yes installs recommended packages. no does not install recommended packages. By default, Ansible will use the same defaults as the operating system. Suggested packages are never installed.

aliases: install-recommends
name
-
A list of package names, like foo, or package specifier with version, like foo=1.0. Name wildcards (fnmatch) like apt* and version wildcards like foo=1.0* are also supported.

aliases: package, pkg
only_upgrade
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Only upgrade a package if it is already installed.
policy_rc_d
integer
added in 2.8
 Default:
null
Force the exit code of /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d.
For example, if policy_rc_d=101 the installed package will not trigger a service start.
If /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d already exist, it is backed up and restored after the package installation.
If null, the /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d isn't created/changed.
purge
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Will force purging of configuration files if the module state is set to absent.
state
-
    Choices:
  • absent
  • build-dep
  • latest
  • present ←
  • fixed
Indicates the desired package state. latest ensures that the latest version is installed. build-dep ensures the package build dependencies are installed. fixed attempt to correct a system with broken dependencies in place.
update_cache
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Run the equivalent of apt-get update before the operation. Can be run as part of the package installation or as a separate step.
upgrade
-
    Choices:
  • dist
  • full
  • no ←
  • safe
  • yes
If yes or safe, performs an aptitude safe-upgrade.
If full, performs an aptitude full-upgrade.
If dist, performs an apt-get dist-upgrade.
Note: This does not upgrade a specific package, use state=latest for that.
Note: Since 2.4, apt-get is used as a fall-back if aptitude is not present.

Notes

Note

  • Three of the upgrade modes (full, safe and its alias yes) required aptitude up to 2.3, since 2.4 apt-get is used as a fall-back.
  • In most cases, packages installed with apt will start newly installed services by default. Most distributions have mechanisms to avoid this. For example when installing Postgresql-9.5 in Debian 9, creating an excutable shell script (/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d) that throws a return code of 101 will stop Postgresql 9.5 starting up after install. Remove the file or remove its execute permission afterwards.
  • The apt-get commandline supports implicit regex matches here but we do not because it can let typos through easier (If you typo foo as fo apt-get would install packages that have “fo” in their name with a warning and a prompt for the user. Since we don’t have warnings and prompts before installing we disallow this.Use an explicit fnmatch pattern if you want wildcarding)
  • When used with a loop: each package will be processed individually, it is much more efficient to pass the list directly to the name option.

Examples

- name: Install apache httpd  (state=present is optional)
  apt:
    name: apache2
    state: present

- name: Update repositories cache and install "foo" package
  apt:
    name: foo
    update_cache: yes

- name: Remove "foo" package
  apt:
    name: foo
    state: absent

- name: Install the package "foo"
  apt:
    name: foo

- name: Install a list of packages
  apt:
    pkg:
    - foo
    - foo-tools

- name: Install the version '1.00' of package "foo"
  apt:
    name: foo=1.00

- name: Update the repository cache and update package "nginx" to latest version using default release squeeze-backport
  apt:
    name: nginx
    state: latest
    default_release: squeeze-backports
    update_cache: yes

- name: Install latest version of "openjdk-6-jdk" ignoring "install-recommends"
  apt:
    name: openjdk-6-jdk
    state: latest
    install_recommends: no

- name: Upgrade all packages to the latest version
  apt:
    name: "*"
    state: latest

- name: Update all packages to the latest version
  apt:
    upgrade: dist

- name: Run the equivalent of "apt-get update" as a separate step
  apt:
    update_cache: yes

- name: Only run "update_cache=yes" if the last one is more than 3600 seconds ago
  apt:
    update_cache: yes
    cache_valid_time: 3600

- name: Pass options to dpkg on run
  apt:
    upgrade: dist
    update_cache: yes
    dpkg_options: 'force-confold,force-confdef'

- name: Install a .deb package
  apt:
    deb: /tmp/mypackage.deb

- name: Install the build dependencies for package "foo"
  apt:
    pkg: foo
    state: build-dep

- name: Install a .deb package from the internet.
  apt:
    deb: https://example.com/python-ppq_0.1-1_all.deb

- name: Remove useless packages from the cache
  apt:
    autoclean: yes

- name: Remove dependencies that are no longer required
  apt:
    autoremove: yes

Return Values

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

Key Returned Description
cache_update_time
integer
success, in some cases
time of the last cache update (0 if unknown)

Sample:
1425828348000
cache_updated
boolean
success, in some cases
if the cache was updated or not

Sample:
True
stderr
string
success, when needed
error output from apt

Sample:
AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to ...
stdout
string
success, when needed
output from apt

Sample:
Reading package lists... Building dependency tree... Reading state information... The following extra packages will be installed: apache2-bin ...


Status

Red Hat Support

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

Authors

  • Matthew Williams (@mgwilliams)

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