Ansible Configuration Settings¶

Ansible supports several sources for configuring its behavior, including an ini file named ansible.cfg, environment variables, command-line options, playbook keywords, and variables. See Controlling how Ansible behaves: precedence rules for details on the relative precedence of each source.

The ansible-config utility allows users to see all the configuration settings available, their defaults, how to set them and where their current value comes from. See ansible-config for more information.

The configuration file¶

Changes can be made and used in a configuration file which will be searched for in the following order:

ANSIBLE_CONFIG (environment variable if set)

ansible.cfg (in the current directory)

~/.ansible.cfg (in the home directory)

/etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

Ansible will process the above list and use the first file found, all others are ignored.

Note

The configuration file is one variant of an INI format. Both the hash sign (#) and semicolon (;) are allowed as comment markers when the comment starts the line. However, if the comment is inline with regular values, only the semicolon is allowed to introduce the comment. For instance:

# some basic default values...
inventory = /etc/ansible/hosts  ; This points to the file that lists your hosts

Avoiding security risks with `ansible.cfg` in the current directory¶

If Ansible were to load ansible.cfg from a world-writable current working directory, it would create a serious security risk. Another user could place their own config file there, designed to make Ansible run malicious code both locally and remotely, possibly with elevated privileges. For this reason, Ansible will not automatically load a config file from the current working directory if the directory is world-writable.

If you depend on using Ansible with a config file in the current working directory, the best way to avoid this problem is to restrict access to your Ansible directories to particular user(s) and/or group(s). If your Ansible directories live on a filesystem which has to emulate Unix permissions, like Vagrant or Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), you may, at first, not know how you can fix this as chmod, chown, and chgrp might not work there. In most of those cases, the correct fix is to modify the mount options of the filesystem so the files and directories are readable and writable by the users and groups running Ansible but closed to others. For more details on the correct settings, see:

for Vagrant, the Vagrant documentation covers synced folder permissions.
for WSL, the WSL docs and this Microsoft blog post cover mount options.

If you absolutely depend on storing your Ansible config in a world-writable current working directory, you can explicitly specify the config file via the ANSIBLE_CONFIG environment variable. Please take appropriate steps to mitigate the security concerns above before doing so.

Relative paths for configuration¶

You can specify a relative path for many configuration options. In most of those cases the path used will be relative to the ansible.cfg file used for the current execution. If you need a path relative to your current working directory (CWD) you can use the {{CWD}} macro to specify it. We do not recommend this approach, as using your CWD as the root of relative paths can be a security risk. For example: cd /tmp; secureinfo=./newrootpassword ansible-playbook ~/safestuff/change_root_pwd.yml.

Common Options¶

This is a copy of the options available from our release, your local install might have extra options due to additional plugins, you can use the command line utility mentioned above (ansible-config) to browse through those.

ACTION_WARNINGS¶

Description

By default Ansible will issue a warning when received from a task action (module or action plugin) These warnings can be silenced by adjusting this setting to False.

Type

boolean

Default

True

Version Added

2.5

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: action_warnings

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_ACTION_WARNINGS

AGNOSTIC_BECOME_PROMPT¶

Description

Display an agnostic become prompt instead of displaying a prompt containing the command line supplied become method

Type

boolean

Default

True

Version Added

2.5

Ini

Section: [privilege_escalation]
Key: agnostic_become_prompt

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_AGNOSTIC_BECOME_PROMPT

ALLOW_WORLD_READABLE_TMPFILES¶

Description

This makes the temporary files created on the machine world-readable and will issue a warning instead of failing the task. It is useful when becoming an unprivileged user.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Version Added

2.1

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: allow_world_readable_tmpfiles

Deprecated in

2.14

Deprecated detail

moved to a per plugin approach that is more flexible

Deprecated alternatives

mostly the same config will work, but now controlled from the plugin itself and not using the general constant.

ANSIBLE_CONNECTION_PATH¶

Description

Specify where to look for the ansible-connection script. This location will be checked before searching $PATH. If null, ansible will start with the same directory as the ansible script.

Type

path

Default

None

Version Added

2.8

Ini

Section: [persistent_connection]
Key: ansible_connection_path

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_CONNECTION_PATH

ANSIBLE_COW_PATH¶

Description

Specify a custom cowsay path or swap in your cowsay implementation of choice

Type

string

Default

None

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: cowpath

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COW_PATH

ANSIBLE_COW_SELECTION¶

Description

This allows you to chose a specific cowsay stencil for the banners or use ‘random’ to cycle through them.

Default

default

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: cow_selection

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COW_SELECTION

ANSIBLE_COW_WHITELIST¶

Description

White list of cowsay templates that are ‘safe’ to use, set to empty list if you want to enable all installed templates.

Type

list

Default

[‘bud-frogs’, ‘bunny’, ‘cheese’, ‘daemon’, ‘default’, ‘dragon’, ‘elephant-in-snake’, ‘elephant’, ‘eyes’, ‘hellokitty’, ‘kitty’, ‘luke-koala’, ‘meow’, ‘milk’, ‘moofasa’, ‘moose’, ‘ren’, ‘sheep’, ‘small’, ‘stegosaurus’, ‘stimpy’, ‘supermilker’, ‘three-eyes’, ‘turkey’, ‘turtle’, ‘tux’, ‘udder’, ‘vader-koala’, ‘vader’, ‘www’]

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: cow_whitelist

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COW_WHITELIST

ANSIBLE_FORCE_COLOR¶

Description

This option forces color mode even when running without a TTY or the “nocolor” setting is True.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: force_color

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_FORCE_COLOR

ANSIBLE_NOCOLOR¶

Description

This setting allows suppressing colorizing output, which is used to give a better indication of failure and status information.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: nocolor

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_NOCOLOR

ANSIBLE_NOCOWS¶

Description

If you have cowsay installed but want to avoid the ‘cows’ (why????), use this.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: nocows

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_NOCOWS

ANSIBLE_PIPELINING¶

Description

Pipelining, if supported by the connection plugin, reduces the number of network operations required to execute a module on the remote server, by executing many Ansible modules without actual file transfer. This can result in a very significant performance improvement when enabled. However this conflicts with privilege escalation (become). For example, when using ‘sudo:’ operations you must first disable ‘requiretty’ in /etc/sudoers on all managed hosts, which is why it is disabled by default. This option is disabled if ANSIBLE_KEEP_REMOTE_FILES is enabled.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section

[connection]

Key

pipelining
Section

[ssh_connection]

Key

pipelining

Environment

Variable

ANSIBLE_PIPELINING
Variable

ANSIBLE_SSH_PIPELINING

ANSIBLE_SSH_ARGS¶

Description

If set, this will override the Ansible default ssh arguments. In particular, users may wish to raise the ControlPersist time to encourage performance. A value of 30 minutes may be appropriate. Be aware that if -o ControlPath is set in ssh_args, the control path setting is not used.

Default

-C -o ControlMaster=auto -o ControlPersist=60s

Ini

Section: [ssh_connection]
Key: ssh_args

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SSH_ARGS

ANSIBLE_SSH_CONTROL_PATH¶

Description

This is the location to save ssh’s ControlPath sockets, it uses ssh’s variable substitution. Since 2.3, if null, ansible will generate a unique hash. Use %(directory)s to indicate where to use the control dir path setting. Before 2.3 it defaulted to control_path=%(directory)s/ansible-ssh-%%h-%%p-%%r. Be aware that this setting is ignored if -o ControlPath is set in ssh args.

Default

None

Ini

Section: [ssh_connection]
Key: control_path

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SSH_CONTROL_PATH

ANSIBLE_SSH_CONTROL_PATH_DIR¶

Description

This sets the directory to use for ssh control path if the control path setting is null. Also, provides the %(directory)s variable for the control path setting.

Default

~/.ansible/cp

Ini

Section: [ssh_connection]
Key: control_path_dir

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SSH_CONTROL_PATH_DIR

ANSIBLE_SSH_EXECUTABLE¶

Description

This defines the location of the ssh binary. It defaults to ssh which will use the first ssh binary available in $PATH. This option is usually not required, it might be useful when access to system ssh is restricted, or when using ssh wrappers to connect to remote hosts.

Default

ssh

Version Added

2.2

Ini

Section: [ssh_connection]
Key: ssh_executable

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SSH_EXECUTABLE

ANSIBLE_SSH_RETRIES¶

Description

Number of attempts to establish a connection before we give up and report the host as ‘UNREACHABLE’

Type

integer

Default

0

Ini

Section: [ssh_connection]
Key: retries

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SSH_RETRIES

ANY_ERRORS_FATAL¶

Description

Sets the default value for the any_errors_fatal keyword, if True, Task failures will be considered fatal errors.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Version Added

2.4

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: any_errors_fatal

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_ANY_ERRORS_FATAL

BECOME_ALLOW_SAME_USER¶

Description

This setting controls if become is skipped when remote user and become user are the same. I.E root sudo to root.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [privilege_escalation]
Key: become_allow_same_user

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_BECOME_ALLOW_SAME_USER

BECOME_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Become Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/become:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/become

Version Added

2.8

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: become_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_BECOME_PLUGINS

CACHE_PLUGIN¶

Description

Chooses which cache plugin to use, the default ‘memory’ is ephemeral.

Default

memory

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: fact_caching

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN

CACHE_PLUGIN_CONNECTION¶

Description

Defines connection or path information for the cache plugin

Default

None

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: fact_caching_connection

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN_CONNECTION

CACHE_PLUGIN_PREFIX¶

Description

Prefix to use for cache plugin files/tables

Default

ansible_facts

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: fact_caching_prefix

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN_PREFIX

CACHE_PLUGIN_TIMEOUT¶

Description

Expiration timeout for the cache plugin data

Type

integer

Default

86400

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: fact_caching_timeout

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN_TIMEOUT

COLLECTIONS_ON_ANSIBLE_VERSION_MISMATCH¶

Description

When a collection is loaded that does not support the running Ansible version (via the collection metadata key requires_ansible), the default behavior is to issue a warning and continue anyway. Setting this value to ignore skips the warning entirely, while setting it to fatal will immediately halt Ansible execution.

Default

warning

Choices

error
warning
ignore

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: collections_on_ansible_version_mismatch

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_ON_ANSIBLE_VERSION_MISMATCH

COLLECTIONS_PATHS¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for collections content.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections

Ini

Section

[defaults]

Key

collections_paths
Section

[defaults]

Key

collections_path

Version Added

2.10

Environment

Variable

ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_PATH

Version Added

2.10
Variable

ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_PATHS

COLLECTIONS_SCAN_SYS_PATH¶

Type

boolean

Default

True

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: collections_scan_sys_path

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLLECTIONS_SCAN_SYS_PATH

COLOR_CHANGED¶

Description

Defines the color to use on ‘Changed’ task status

Default

yellow

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: changed

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_CHANGED

COLOR_CONSOLE_PROMPT¶

Description

Defines the default color to use for ansible-console

Default

white

Version Added

2.7

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: console_prompt

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_CONSOLE_PROMPT

COLOR_DEBUG¶

Description

Defines the color to use when emitting debug messages

Default

dark gray

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: debug

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_DEBUG

COLOR_DEPRECATE¶

Description

Defines the color to use when emitting deprecation messages

Default

purple

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: deprecate

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_DEPRECATE

COLOR_DIFF_ADD¶

Description

Defines the color to use when showing added lines in diffs

Default

green

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: diff_add

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_DIFF_ADD

COLOR_DIFF_LINES¶

Description

Defines the color to use when showing diffs

Default

cyan

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: diff_lines

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_DIFF_LINES

COLOR_DIFF_REMOVE¶

Description

Defines the color to use when showing removed lines in diffs

Default

red

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: diff_remove

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_DIFF_REMOVE

COLOR_ERROR¶

Description

Defines the color to use when emitting error messages

Default

red

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: error

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_ERROR

COLOR_HIGHLIGHT¶

Description

Defines the color to use for highlighting

Default

white

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: highlight

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_HIGHLIGHT

COLOR_OK¶

Description

Defines the color to use when showing ‘OK’ task status

Default

green

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: ok

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_OK

COLOR_SKIP¶

Description

Defines the color to use when showing ‘Skipped’ task status

Default

cyan

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: skip

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_SKIP

COLOR_UNREACHABLE¶

Description

Defines the color to use on ‘Unreachable’ status

Default

bright red

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: unreachable

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_UNREACHABLE

COLOR_VERBOSE¶

Description

Defines the color to use when emitting verbose messages. i.e those that show with ‘-v’s.

Default

blue

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: verbose

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_VERBOSE

COLOR_WARN¶

Description

Defines the color to use when emitting warning messages

Default

bright purple

Ini

Section: [colors]
Key: warn

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COLOR_WARN

COMMAND_WARNINGS¶

Description

By default Ansible will issue a warning when the shell or command module is used and the command appears to be similar to an existing Ansible module. These warnings can be silenced by adjusting this setting to False. You can also control this at the task level with the module option warn.

Type

boolean

Default

True

Version Added

1.8

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: command_warnings

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_COMMAND_WARNINGS

CONDITIONAL_BARE_VARS¶

Description

With this setting on (True), running conditional evaluation ‘var’ is treated differently than ‘var.subkey’ as the first is evaluated directly while the second goes through the Jinja2 parser. But ‘false’ strings in ‘var’ get evaluated as booleans. With this setting off they both evaluate the same but in cases in which ‘var’ was ‘false’ (a string) it won’t get evaluated as a boolean anymore. Currently this setting defaults to ‘True’ but will soon change to ‘False’ and the setting itself will be removed in the future. Expect that this setting eventually will be deprecated after 2.12

Type

boolean

Default

False

Version Added

2.8

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: conditional_bare_variables

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_CONDITIONAL_BARE_VARS

CONNECTION_FACTS_MODULES¶

Description

Which modules to run during a play’s fact gathering stage based on connection

Type

dict

Default

{‘asa’: ‘ansible.legacy.asa_facts’, ‘cisco.asa.asa’: ‘cisco.asa.asa_facts’, ‘eos’: ‘ansible.legacy.eos_facts’, ‘arista.eos.eos’: ‘arista.eos.eos_facts’, ‘frr’: ‘ansible.legacy.frr_facts’, ‘frr.frr.frr’: ‘frr.frr.frr_facts’, ‘ios’: ‘ansible.legacy.ios_facts’, ‘cisco.ios.ios’: ‘cisco.ios.ios_facts’, ‘iosxr’: ‘ansible.legacy.iosxr_facts’, ‘cisco.iosxr.iosxr’: ‘cisco.iosxr.iosxr_facts’, ‘junos’: ‘ansible.legacy.junos_facts’, ‘junipernetworks.junos.junos’: ‘junipernetworks.junos.junos_facts’, ‘nxos’: ‘ansible.legacy.nxos_facts’, ‘cisco.nxos.nxos’: ‘cisco.nxos.nxos_facts’, ‘vyos’: ‘ansible.legacy.vyos_facts’, ‘vyos.vyos.vyos’: ‘vyos.vyos.vyos_facts’, ‘exos’: ‘ansible.legacy.exos_facts’, ‘extreme.exos.exos’: ‘extreme.exos.exos_facts’, ‘slxos’: ‘ansible.legacy.slxos_facts’, ‘extreme.slxos.slxos’: ‘extreme.slxos.slxos_facts’, ‘voss’: ‘ansible.legacy.voss_facts’, ‘extreme.voss.voss’: ‘extreme.voss.voss_facts’, ‘ironware’: ‘ansible.legacy.ironware_facts’, ‘community.network.ironware’: ‘community.network.ironware_facts’}

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: connection_facts_modules

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_CONNECTION_FACTS_MODULES

COVERAGE_REMOTE_OUTPUT¶

Description

Sets the output directory on the remote host to generate coverage reports to. Currently only used for remote coverage on PowerShell modules. This is for internal use only.

Type

str

Version Added

2.9

Environment

Variable: _ANSIBLE_COVERAGE_REMOTE_OUTPUT

Variables

name: _ansible_coverage_remote_output

COVERAGE_REMOTE_WHITELIST¶

Description

A list of paths for files on the Ansible controller to run coverage for when executing on the remote host. Only files that match the path glob will have its coverage collected. Multiple path globs can be specified and are separated by :. Currently only used for remote coverage on PowerShell modules. This is for internal use only.

Type

str

Default

Version Added

2.9

Environment

Variable: _ANSIBLE_COVERAGE_REMOTE_WHITELIST

DEFAULT_ACTION_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Action Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/action:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/action

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: action_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_ACTION_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_ALLOW_UNSAFE_LOOKUPS¶

Description

When enabled, this option allows lookup plugins (whether used in variables as {{lookup('foo')}} or as a loop as with_foo) to return data that is not marked ‘unsafe’. By default, such data is marked as unsafe to prevent the templating engine from evaluating any jinja2 templating language, as this could represent a security risk. This option is provided to allow for backwards-compatibility, however users should first consider adding allow_unsafe=True to any lookups which may be expected to contain data which may be run through the templating engine late

Type

boolean

Default

False

Version Added

2.2.3

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: allow_unsafe_lookups

DEFAULT_ASK_PASS¶

Description

This controls whether an Ansible playbook should prompt for a login password. If using SSH keys for authentication, you probably do not needed to change this setting.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: ask_pass

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_ASK_PASS

DEFAULT_ASK_VAULT_PASS¶

Description

This controls whether an Ansible playbook should prompt for a vault password.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: ask_vault_pass

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_ASK_VAULT_PASS

DEFAULT_BECOME¶

Description

Toggles the use of privilege escalation, allowing you to ‘become’ another user after login.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [privilege_escalation]
Key: become

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_BECOME

DEFAULT_BECOME_ASK_PASS¶

Description

Toggle to prompt for privilege escalation password.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [privilege_escalation]
Key: become_ask_pass

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_BECOME_ASK_PASS

DEFAULT_BECOME_EXE¶

Description

executable to use for privilege escalation, otherwise Ansible will depend on PATH

Default

None

Ini

Section: [privilege_escalation]
Key: become_exe

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_BECOME_EXE

DEFAULT_BECOME_FLAGS¶

Description

Flags to pass to the privilege escalation executable.

Default

Ini

Section: [privilege_escalation]
Key: become_flags

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_BECOME_FLAGS

DEFAULT_BECOME_METHOD¶

Description

Privilege escalation method to use when become is enabled.

Default

sudo

Ini

Section: [privilege_escalation]
Key: become_method

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_BECOME_METHOD

DEFAULT_BECOME_USER¶

Description

The user your login/remote user ‘becomes’ when using privilege escalation, most systems will use ‘root’ when no user is specified.

Default

root

Ini

Section: [privilege_escalation]
Key: become_user

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_BECOME_USER

DEFAULT_CACHE_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Cache Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/cache:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/cache

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: cache_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_CALLABLE_WHITELIST¶

Description

Whitelist of callable methods to be made available to template evaluation

Type

list

Default

[]

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: callable_whitelist

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_CALLABLE_WHITELIST

DEFAULT_CALLBACK_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Callback Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/callback:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/callback

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: callback_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_CALLBACK_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_CALLBACK_WHITELIST¶

Description

List of whitelisted callbacks, not all callbacks need whitelisting, but many of those shipped with Ansible do as we don’t want them activated by default.

Type

list

Default

[]

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: callback_whitelist

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_CALLBACK_WHITELIST

DEFAULT_CLICONF_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Cliconf Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/cliconf:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/cliconf

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: cliconf_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_CLICONF_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_CONNECTION_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Connection Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/connection:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/connection

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: connection_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_CONNECTION_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_DEBUG¶

Description

Toggles debug output in Ansible. This is very verbose and can hinder multiprocessing. Debug output can also include secret information despite no_log settings being enabled, which means debug mode should not be used in production.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: debug

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_DEBUG

DEFAULT_EXECUTABLE¶

Description

This indicates the command to use to spawn a shell under for Ansible’s execution needs on a target. Users may need to change this in rare instances when shell usage is constrained, but in most cases it may be left as is.

Default

/bin/sh

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: executable

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_EXECUTABLE

DEFAULT_FACT_PATH¶

Description

This option allows you to globally configure a custom path for ‘local_facts’ for the implied M(ansible.builtin.setup) task when using fact gathering. If not set, it will fallback to the default from the M(ansible.builtin.setup) module: /etc/ansible/facts.d. This does not affect user defined tasks that use the M(ansible.builtin.setup) module.

Type

string

Default

None

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: fact_path

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_FACT_PATH

DEFAULT_FILTER_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Jinja2 Filter Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/filter:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/filter

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: filter_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_FILTER_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_FORCE_HANDLERS¶

Description

This option controls if notified handlers run on a host even if a failure occurs on that host. When false, the handlers will not run if a failure has occurred on a host. This can also be set per play or on the command line. See Handlers and Failure for more details.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Version Added

1.9.1

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: force_handlers

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_FORCE_HANDLERS

DEFAULT_FORKS¶

Description

Maximum number of forks Ansible will use to execute tasks on target hosts.

Type

integer

Default

5

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: forks

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_FORKS

DEFAULT_GATHER_SUBSET¶

Description

Set the gather_subset option for the M(ansible.builtin.setup) task in the implicit fact gathering. See the module documentation for specifics. It does not apply to user defined M(ansible.builtin.setup) tasks.

Type

list

Default

[‘all’]

Version Added

2.1

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: gather_subset

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_GATHER_SUBSET

DEFAULT_GATHER_TIMEOUT¶

Description

Set the timeout in seconds for the implicit fact gathering. It does not apply to user defined M(ansible.builtin.setup) tasks.

Type

integer

Default

10

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: gather_timeout

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_GATHER_TIMEOUT

DEFAULT_GATHERING¶

Description

This setting controls the default policy of fact gathering (facts discovered about remote systems). When ‘implicit’ (the default), the cache plugin will be ignored and facts will be gathered per play unless ‘gather_facts: False’ is set. When ‘explicit’ the inverse is true, facts will not be gathered unless directly requested in the play. The ‘smart’ value means each new host that has no facts discovered will be scanned, but if the same host is addressed in multiple plays it will not be contacted again in the playbook run. This option can be useful for those wishing to save fact gathering time. Both ‘smart’ and ‘explicit’ will use the cache plugin.

Default

implicit

Choices

smart
explicit
implicit

Version Added

1.6

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: gathering

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_GATHERING

DEFAULT_HANDLER_INCLUDES_STATIC¶

Description

Since 2.0 M(ansible.builtin.include) can be ‘dynamic’, this setting (if True) forces that if the include appears in a handlers section to be ‘static’.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: handler_includes_static

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_HANDLER_INCLUDES_STATIC

Deprecated in

2.12

Deprecated detail

include itself is deprecated and this setting will not matter in the future

Deprecated alternatives

none as its already built into the decision between include_tasks and import_tasks

DEFAULT_HASH_BEHAVIOUR¶

Description

This setting controls how duplicate definitions of dictionary variables (aka hash, map, associative array) are handled in Ansible. This does not affect variables whose values are scalars (integers, strings) or arrays. WARNING, changing this setting is not recommended as this is fragile and makes your content (plays, roles, collections) non portable, leading to continual confusion and misuse. Don’t change this setting unless you think you have an absolute need for it. We recommend avoiding reusing variable names and relying on the combine filter and vars and varnames lookups to create merged versions of the individual variables. In our experience this is rarely really needed and a sign that too much complexity has been introduced into the data structures and plays. For some uses you can also look into custom vars_plugins to merge on input, even substituting the default host_group_vars that is in charge of parsing the host_vars/ and group_vars/ directories. Most users of this setting are only interested in inventory scope, but the setting itself affects all sources and makes debugging even harder. All playbooks and roles in the official examples repos assume the default for this setting. Changing the setting to merge applies across variable sources, but many sources will internally still overwrite the variables. For example include_vars will dedupe variables internally before updating Ansible, with ‘last defined’ overwriting previous definitions in same file. The Ansible project recommends you avoid ``merge`` for new projects. It is the intention of the Ansible developers to eventually deprecate and remove this setting, but it is being kept as some users do heavily rely on it. New projects should avoid ‘merge’.

Type

string

Default

replace

Choices

replace

Any variable that is defined more than once is overwritten using the order from variable precedence rules (highest wins).
merge

Any dictionary variable will be recursively merged with new definitions across the different variable definition sources.

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: hash_behaviour

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_HASH_BEHAVIOUR

DEFAULT_HOST_LIST¶

Description

Comma separated list of Ansible inventory sources

Type

pathlist

Default

/etc/ansible/hosts

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: inventory

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY

DEFAULT_HTTPAPI_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for HttpApi Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/httpapi:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/httpapi

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: httpapi_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_HTTPAPI_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_INTERNAL_POLL_INTERVAL¶

Description

This sets the interval (in seconds) of Ansible internal processes polling each other. Lower values improve performance with large playbooks at the expense of extra CPU load. Higher values are more suitable for Ansible usage in automation scenarios, when UI responsiveness is not required but CPU usage might be a concern. The default corresponds to the value hardcoded in Ansible <= 2.1

Type

float

Default

0.001

Version Added

2.2

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: internal_poll_interval

DEFAULT_INVENTORY_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Inventory Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/inventory:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/inventory

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: inventory_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_JINJA2_EXTENSIONS¶

Description

This is a developer-specific feature that allows enabling additional Jinja2 extensions. See the Jinja2 documentation for details. If you do not know what these do, you probably don’t need to change this setting :)

Default

[]

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: jinja2_extensions

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_JINJA2_EXTENSIONS

DEFAULT_JINJA2_NATIVE¶

Description

This option preserves variable types during template operations. This requires Jinja2 >= 2.10.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Version Added

2.7

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: jinja2_native

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_JINJA2_NATIVE

DEFAULT_KEEP_REMOTE_FILES¶

Description

Enables/disables the cleaning up of the temporary files Ansible used to execute the tasks on the remote. If this option is enabled it will disable ANSIBLE_PIPELINING.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: keep_remote_files

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_KEEP_REMOTE_FILES

DEFAULT_LIBVIRT_LXC_NOSECLABEL¶

Description

This setting causes libvirt to connect to lxc containers by passing –noseclabel to virsh. This is necessary when running on systems which do not have SELinux.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Version Added

2.1

Ini

Section: [selinux]
Key: libvirt_lxc_noseclabel

Environment

Variable

ANSIBLE_LIBVIRT_LXC_NOSECLABEL
Variable

LIBVIRT_LXC_NOSECLABEL

Deprecated in

2.12

Deprecated detail

environment variables without ANSIBLE_ prefix are deprecated

Deprecated alternatives

the ANSIBLE_LIBVIRT_LXC_NOSECLABEL environment variable

DEFAULT_LOAD_CALLBACK_PLUGINS¶

Description

Controls whether callback plugins are loaded when running /usr/bin/ansible. This may be used to log activity from the command line, send notifications, and so on. Callback plugins are always loaded for ansible-playbook.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Version Added

1.8

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: bin_ansible_callbacks

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_LOAD_CALLBACK_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_LOCAL_TMP¶

Description

Temporary directory for Ansible to use on the controller.

Type

tmppath

Default

~/.ansible/tmp

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: local_tmp

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_LOCAL_TEMP

DEFAULT_LOG_FILTER¶

Description

List of logger names to filter out of the log file

Type

list

Default

[]

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: log_filter

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_LOG_FILTER

DEFAULT_LOG_PATH¶

Description

File to which Ansible will log on the controller. When empty logging is disabled.

Type

path

Default

None

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: log_path

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_LOG_PATH

DEFAULT_LOOKUP_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Lookup Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/lookup:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/lookup

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: lookup_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_LOOKUP_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_MANAGED_STR¶

Description

Sets the macro for the ‘ansible_managed’ variable available for M(ansible.builtin.template) and M(ansible.windows.win_template) modules. This is only relevant for those two modules.

Default

Ansible managed

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: ansible_managed

DEFAULT_MODULE_ARGS¶

Description

This sets the default arguments to pass to the ansible adhoc binary if no -a is specified.

Default

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: module_args

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_MODULE_ARGS

DEFAULT_MODULE_COMPRESSION¶

Description

Compression scheme to use when transferring Python modules to the target.

Default

ZIP_DEFLATED

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: module_compression

DEFAULT_MODULE_NAME¶

Description

Module to use with the ansible AdHoc command, if none is specified via -m.

Default

command

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: module_name

DEFAULT_MODULE_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Modules.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/modules:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: library

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_LIBRARY

DEFAULT_MODULE_UTILS_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Module utils files, which are shared by modules.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/module_utils:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/module_utils

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: module_utils

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_MODULE_UTILS

DEFAULT_NETCONF_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Netconf Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/netconf:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/netconf

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: netconf_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_NETCONF_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_NO_LOG¶

Description

Toggle Ansible’s display and logging of task details, mainly used to avoid security disclosures.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: no_log

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_NO_LOG

DEFAULT_NO_TARGET_SYSLOG¶

Description

Toggle Ansible logging to syslog on the target when it executes tasks. On Windows hosts this will disable a newer style PowerShell modules from writting to the event log.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: no_target_syslog

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_NO_TARGET_SYSLOG

Variables

name: ansible_no_target_syslog :Version Added: 2.10

DEFAULT_NULL_REPRESENTATION¶

Description

What templating should return as a ‘null’ value. When not set it will let Jinja2 decide.

Type

none

Default

None

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: null_representation

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_NULL_REPRESENTATION

DEFAULT_POLL_INTERVAL¶

Description

For asynchronous tasks in Ansible (covered in Asynchronous Actions and Polling), this is how often to check back on the status of those tasks when an explicit poll interval is not supplied. The default is a reasonably moderate 15 seconds which is a tradeoff between checking in frequently and providing a quick turnaround when something may have completed.

Type

integer

Default

15

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: poll_interval

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_POLL_INTERVAL

DEFAULT_PRIVATE_KEY_FILE¶

Description

Option for connections using a certificate or key file to authenticate, rather than an agent or passwords, you can set the default value here to avoid re-specifying –private-key with every invocation.

Type

path

Default

None

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: private_key_file

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_PRIVATE_KEY_FILE

DEFAULT_PRIVATE_ROLE_VARS¶

Description

Makes role variables inaccessible from other roles. This was introduced as a way to reset role variables to default values if a role is used more than once in a playbook.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: private_role_vars

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_PRIVATE_ROLE_VARS

DEFAULT_REMOTE_PORT¶

Description

Port to use in remote connections, when blank it will use the connection plugin default.

Type

integer

Default

None

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: remote_port

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_REMOTE_PORT

DEFAULT_REMOTE_USER¶

Description

Sets the login user for the target machines When blank it uses the connection plugin’s default, normally the user currently executing Ansible.

Default

None

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: remote_user

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_REMOTE_USER

DEFAULT_ROLES_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Roles.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/roles:/usr/share/ansible/roles:/etc/ansible/roles

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: roles_path

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_ROLES_PATH

DEFAULT_SCP_IF_SSH¶

Description

Preferred method to use when transferring files over ssh. When set to smart, Ansible will try them until one succeeds or they all fail. If set to True, it will force ‘scp’, if False it will use ‘sftp’.

Default

smart

Ini

Section: [ssh_connection]
Key: scp_if_ssh

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SCP_IF_SSH

DEFAULT_SELINUX_SPECIAL_FS¶

Description

Some filesystems do not support safe operations and/or return inconsistent errors, this setting makes Ansible ‘tolerate’ those in the list w/o causing fatal errors. Data corruption may occur and writes are not always verified when a filesystem is in the list.

Type

list

Default

fuse, nfs, vboxsf, ramfs, 9p, vfat

Ini

Section: [selinux]
Key: special_context_filesystems

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SELINUX_SPECIAL_FS :Version Added: 2.9

DEFAULT_SFTP_BATCH_MODE¶

Type

boolean

Default

True

Ini

Section: [ssh_connection]
Key: sftp_batch_mode

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SFTP_BATCH_MODE

DEFAULT_SQUASH_ACTIONS¶

Description

Ansible can optimise actions that call modules that support list parameters when using with_ looping. Instead of calling the module once for each item, the module is called once with the full list. The default value for this setting is only for certain package managers, but it can be used for any module. Currently, this is only supported for modules that have a name or pkg parameter, and only when the item is the only thing being passed to the parameter.

Type

list

Default

apk, apt, dnf, homebrew, openbsd_pkg, pacman, pip, pkgng, yum, zypper

Version Added

2.0

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: squash_actions

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SQUASH_ACTIONS

Deprecated in

2.11

Deprecated detail

Loop squashing is deprecated and this configuration will no longer be used

Deprecated alternatives

a list directly with the module argument

DEFAULT_SSH_TRANSFER_METHOD¶

Description

unused?

Default

None

Ini

Section: [ssh_connection]
Key: transfer_method

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SSH_TRANSFER_METHOD

DEFAULT_STDOUT_CALLBACK¶

Description

Set the main callback used to display Ansible output, you can only have one at a time. You can have many other callbacks, but just one can be in charge of stdout.

Default

default

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: stdout_callback

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_STDOUT_CALLBACK

DEFAULT_STRATEGY¶

Description

Set the default strategy used for plays.

Default

linear

Version Added

2.3

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: strategy

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_STRATEGY

DEFAULT_STRATEGY_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Strategy Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/strategy:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/strategy

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: strategy_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_STRATEGY_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_SU¶

Description

Toggle the use of “su” for tasks.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: su

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SU

DEFAULT_SYSLOG_FACILITY¶

Description

Syslog facility to use when Ansible logs to the remote target

Default

LOG_USER

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: syslog_facility

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SYSLOG_FACILITY

DEFAULT_TASK_INCLUDES_STATIC¶

Description

The include tasks can be static or dynamic, this toggles the default expected behaviour if autodetection fails and it is not explicitly set in task.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Version Added

2.1

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: task_includes_static

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_TASK_INCLUDES_STATIC

Deprecated in

2.12

Deprecated detail

include itself is deprecated and this setting will not matter in the future

Deprecated alternatives

None, as its already built into the decision between include_tasks and import_tasks

DEFAULT_TERMINAL_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Terminal Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/terminal:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/terminal

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: terminal_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_TERMINAL_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_TEST_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Jinja2 Test Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/test:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/test

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: test_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_TEST_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_TIMEOUT¶

Description

This is the default timeout for connection plugins to use.

Type

integer

Default

10

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: timeout

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_TIMEOUT

DEFAULT_TRANSPORT¶

Description

Default connection plugin to use, the ‘smart’ option will toggle between ‘ssh’ and ‘paramiko’ depending on controller OS and ssh versions

Default

smart

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: transport

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_TRANSPORT

DEFAULT_UNDEFINED_VAR_BEHAVIOR¶

Description

When True, this causes ansible templating to fail steps that reference variable names that are likely typoed. Otherwise, any ‘{{ template_expression }}’ that contains undefined variables will be rendered in a template or ansible action line exactly as written.

Type

boolean

Default

True

Version Added

1.3

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: error_on_undefined_vars

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_ERROR_ON_UNDEFINED_VARS

DEFAULT_VARS_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Vars Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/vars:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/vars

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: vars_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_VARS_PLUGINS

DEFAULT_VAULT_ENCRYPT_IDENTITY¶

Description

The vault_id to use for encrypting by default. If multiple vault_ids are provided, this specifies which to use for encryption. The –encrypt-vault-id cli option overrides the configured value.

Default

None

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: vault_encrypt_identity

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_VAULT_ENCRYPT_IDENTITY

DEFAULT_VAULT_ID_MATCH¶

Description

If true, decrypting vaults with a vault id will only try the password from the matching vault-id

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: vault_id_match

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_VAULT_ID_MATCH

DEFAULT_VAULT_IDENTITY¶

Description

The label to use for the default vault id label in cases where a vault id label is not provided

Default

default

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: vault_identity

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_VAULT_IDENTITY

DEFAULT_VAULT_IDENTITY_LIST¶

Description

A list of vault-ids to use by default. Equivalent to multiple –vault-id args. Vault-ids are tried in order.

Type

list

Default

[]

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: vault_identity_list

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_VAULT_IDENTITY_LIST

DEFAULT_VAULT_PASSWORD_FILE¶

Description

The vault password file to use. Equivalent to –vault-password-file or –vault-id

Type

path

Default

None

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: vault_password_file

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_VAULT_PASSWORD_FILE

DEFAULT_VERBOSITY¶

Description

Sets the default verbosity, equivalent to the number of -v passed in the command line.

Type

integer

Default

0

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: verbosity

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_VERBOSITY

DEPRECATION_WARNINGS¶

Description

Toggle to control the showing of deprecation warnings

Type

boolean

Default

True

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: deprecation_warnings

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_DEPRECATION_WARNINGS

DEVEL_WARNING¶

Description

Toggle to control showing warnings related to running devel

Type

boolean

Default

True

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: devel_warning

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_DEVEL_WARNING

DIFF_ALWAYS¶

Description

Configuration toggle to tell modules to show differences when in ‘changed’ status, equivalent to --diff.

Type

bool

Default

False

Ini

Section: [diff]
Key: always

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_DIFF_ALWAYS

DIFF_CONTEXT¶

Description

How many lines of context to show when displaying the differences between files.

Type

integer

Default

3

Ini

Section: [diff]
Key: context

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_DIFF_CONTEXT

DISPLAY_ARGS_TO_STDOUT¶

Description

Normally ansible-playbook will print a header for each task that is run. These headers will contain the name: field from the task if you specified one. If you didn’t then ansible-playbook uses the task’s action to help you tell which task is presently running. Sometimes you run many of the same action and so you want more information about the task to differentiate it from others of the same action. If you set this variable to True in the config then ansible-playbook will also include the task’s arguments in the header. This setting defaults to False because there is a chance that you have sensitive values in your parameters and you do not want those to be printed. If you set this to True you should be sure that you have secured your environment’s stdout (no one can shoulder surf your screen and you aren’t saving stdout to an insecure file) or made sure that all of your playbooks explicitly added the no_log: True parameter to tasks which have sensitive values See How do I keep secret data in my playbook? for more information.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Version Added

2.1

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: display_args_to_stdout

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_DISPLAY_ARGS_TO_STDOUT

DISPLAY_SKIPPED_HOSTS¶

Description

Toggle to control displaying skipped task/host entries in a task in the default callback

Type

boolean

Default

True

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: display_skipped_hosts

Environment

Variable

ANSIBLE_DISPLAY_SKIPPED_HOSTS
Variable

DISPLAY_SKIPPED_HOSTS

Deprecated in

2.12

Deprecated detail

environment variables without ANSIBLE_ prefix are deprecated

Deprecated alternatives

the ANSIBLE_DISPLAY_SKIPPED_HOSTS environment variable

DOC_FRAGMENT_PLUGIN_PATH¶

Description

Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Documentation Fragments Plugins.

Type

pathspec

Default

~/.ansible/plugins/doc_fragments:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/doc_fragments

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: doc_fragment_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_DOC_FRAGMENT_PLUGINS

DOCSITE_ROOT_URL¶

Description

Root docsite URL used to generate docs URLs in warning/error text; must be an absolute URL with valid scheme and trailing slash.

Default

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/

Version Added

2.8

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: docsite_root_url

DUPLICATE_YAML_DICT_KEY¶

Description

By default Ansible will issue a warning when a duplicate dict key is encountered in YAML. These warnings can be silenced by adjusting this setting to False.

Type

string

Default

warn

Choices

warn
error
ignore

Version Added

2.9

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: duplicate_dict_key

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_DUPLICATE_YAML_DICT_KEY

ENABLE_TASK_DEBUGGER¶

Description

Whether or not to enable the task debugger, this previously was done as a strategy plugin. Now all strategy plugins can inherit this behavior. The debugger defaults to activating when a task is failed on unreachable. Use the debugger keyword for more flexibility.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Version Added

2.5

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: enable_task_debugger

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_ENABLE_TASK_DEBUGGER

ERROR_ON_MISSING_HANDLER¶

Description

Toggle to allow missing handlers to become a warning instead of an error when notifying.

Type

boolean

Default

True

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: error_on_missing_handler

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_ERROR_ON_MISSING_HANDLER

FACTS_MODULES¶

Description

Which modules to run during a play’s fact gathering stage, using the default of ‘smart’ will try to figure it out based on connection type.

Type

list

Default

[‘smart’]

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: facts_modules

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_FACTS_MODULES

Variables

name: ansible_facts_modules

GALAXY_DISPLAY_PROGRESS¶

Description

Some steps in ansible-galaxy display a progress wheel which can cause issues on certain displays or when outputing the stdout to a file. This config option controls whether the display wheel is shown or not. The default is to show the display wheel if stdout has a tty.

Type

bool

Default

None

Version Added

2.10

Ini

Section: [galaxy]
Key: display_progress

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_GALAXY_DISPLAY_PROGRESS

GALAXY_IGNORE_CERTS¶

Description

If set to yes, ansible-galaxy will not validate TLS certificates. This can be useful for testing against a server with a self-signed certificate.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [galaxy]
Key: ignore_certs

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_GALAXY_IGNORE

GALAXY_ROLE_SKELETON¶

Description

Role or collection skeleton directory to use as a template for the init action in ansible-galaxy, same as --role-skeleton.

Type

path

Default

None

Ini

Section: [galaxy]
Key: role_skeleton

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_GALAXY_ROLE_SKELETON

GALAXY_ROLE_SKELETON_IGNORE¶

Description

patterns of files to ignore inside a Galaxy role or collection skeleton directory

Type

list

Default

[‘^.git$’, ‘^.*/.git_keep$’]

Ini

Section: [galaxy]
Key: role_skeleton_ignore

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_GALAXY_ROLE_SKELETON_IGNORE

GALAXY_SERVER¶

Description

URL to prepend when roles don’t specify the full URI, assume they are referencing this server as the source.

Default

https://galaxy.ansible.com

Ini

Section: [galaxy]
Key: server

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_GALAXY_SERVER

GALAXY_SERVER_LIST¶

Description

A list of Galaxy servers to use when installing a collection. The value corresponds to the config ini header [galaxy_server.{{item}}] which defines the server details. See Configuring the ansible-galaxy client for more details on how to define a Galaxy server. The order of servers in this list is used to as the order in which a collection is resolved. Setting this config option will ignore the GALAXY_SERVER config option.

Type

list

Version Added

2.9

Ini

Section: [galaxy]
Key: server_list

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_GALAXY_SERVER_LIST

GALAXY_TOKEN_PATH¶

Description

Local path to galaxy access token file

Type

path

Default

~/.ansible/galaxy_token

Version Added

2.9

Ini

Section: [galaxy]
Key: token_path

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_GALAXY_TOKEN_PATH

HOST_KEY_CHECKING¶

Description

Set this to “False” if you want to avoid host key checking by the underlying tools Ansible uses to connect to the host

Type

boolean

Default

True

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: host_key_checking

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING

HOST_PATTERN_MISMATCH¶

Description

This setting changes the behaviour of mismatched host patterns, it allows you to force a fatal error, a warning or just ignore it

Default

warning

Choices

warning
error
ignore

Version Added

2.8

Ini

Section: [inventory]
Key: host_pattern_mismatch

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_HOST_PATTERN_MISMATCH

INJECT_FACTS_AS_VARS¶

Description

Facts are available inside the ansible_facts variable, this setting also pushes them as their own vars in the main namespace. Unlike inside the ansible_facts dictionary, these will have an ansible_ prefix.

Type

boolean

Default

True

Version Added

2.5

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: inject_facts_as_vars

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INJECT_FACT_VARS

INTERPRETER_PYTHON¶

Description

Path to the Python interpreter to be used for module execution on remote targets, or an automatic discovery mode. Supported discovery modes are auto, auto_silent, and auto_legacy (the default). All discovery modes employ a lookup table to use the included system Python (on distributions known to include one), falling back to a fixed ordered list of well-known Python interpreter locations if a platform-specific default is not available. The fallback behavior will issue a warning that the interpreter should be set explicitly (since interpreters installed later may change which one is used). This warning behavior can be disabled by setting auto_silent. The default value of auto_legacy provides all the same behavior, but for backwards-compatibility with older Ansible releases that always defaulted to /usr/bin/python, will use that interpreter if present (and issue a warning that the default behavior will change to that of auto in a future Ansible release.

Default

auto_legacy

Version Added

2.8

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: interpreter_python

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_PYTHON_INTERPRETER

Variables

name: ansible_python_interpreter

INTERPRETER_PYTHON_DISTRO_MAP¶

Default: {‘centos’: {‘6’: ‘/usr/bin/python’, ‘8’: ‘/usr/libexec/platform-python’}, ‘debian’: {‘10’: ‘/usr/bin/python3’}, ‘fedora’: {‘23’: ‘/usr/bin/python3’}, ‘redhat’: {‘6’: ‘/usr/bin/python’, ‘8’: ‘/usr/libexec/platform-python’}, ‘rhel’: {‘6’: ‘/usr/bin/python’, ‘8’: ‘/usr/libexec/platform-python’}, ‘ubuntu’: {‘14’: ‘/usr/bin/python’, ‘16’: ‘/usr/bin/python3’}}
Version Added: 2.8

INTERPRETER_PYTHON_FALLBACK¶

Default: [‘/usr/bin/python’, ‘python3.7’, ‘python3.6’, ‘python3.5’, ‘python2.7’, ‘python2.6’, ‘/usr/libexec/platform-python’, ‘/usr/bin/python3’, ‘python’]
Version Added: 2.8

INVALID_TASK_ATTRIBUTE_FAILED¶

Description

If ‘false’, invalid attributes for a task will result in warnings instead of errors

Type

boolean

Default

True

Version Added

2.7

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: invalid_task_attribute_failed

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVALID_TASK_ATTRIBUTE_FAILED

INVENTORY_ANY_UNPARSED_IS_FAILED¶

Description

If ‘true’, it is a fatal error when any given inventory source cannot be successfully parsed by any available inventory plugin; otherwise, this situation only attracts a warning.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Version Added

2.7

Ini

Section: [inventory]
Key: any_unparsed_is_failed

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_ANY_UNPARSED_IS_FAILED

INVENTORY_CACHE_ENABLED¶

Description

Toggle to turn on inventory caching

Type

bool

Default

False

Ini

Section: [inventory]
Key: cache

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE

INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN¶

Description

The plugin for caching inventory. If INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN is not provided CACHE_PLUGIN can be used instead.

Ini

Section: [inventory]
Key: cache_plugin

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN

INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN_CONNECTION¶

Description

The inventory cache connection. If INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN_CONNECTION is not provided CACHE_PLUGIN_CONNECTION can be used instead.

Ini

Section: [inventory]
Key: cache_connection

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_CONNECTION

INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN_PREFIX¶

Description

The table prefix for the cache plugin. If INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN_PREFIX is not provided CACHE_PLUGIN_PREFIX can be used instead.

Default

ansible_facts

Ini

Section: [inventory]
Key: cache_prefix

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN_PREFIX

INVENTORY_CACHE_TIMEOUT¶

Description

Expiration timeout for the inventory cache plugin data. If INVENTORY_CACHE_TIMEOUT is not provided CACHE_TIMEOUT can be used instead.

Default

3600

Ini

Section: [inventory]
Key: cache_timeout

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_TIMEOUT

INVENTORY_ENABLED¶

Description

List of enabled inventory plugins, it also determines the order in which they are used.

Type

list

Default

[‘host_list’, ‘script’, ‘auto’, ‘yaml’, ‘ini’, ‘toml’]

Ini

Section: [inventory]
Key: enable_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_ENABLED

INVENTORY_EXPORT¶

Description

Controls if ansible-inventory will accurately reflect Ansible’s view into inventory or its optimized for exporting.

Type

bool

Default

False

Ini

Section: [inventory]
Key: export

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_EXPORT

INVENTORY_IGNORE_EXTS¶

Description

List of extensions to ignore when using a directory as an inventory source

Type

list

Default

Ini

Section

[defaults]

Key

inventory_ignore_extensions
Section

[inventory]

Key

ignore_extensions

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_IGNORE

INVENTORY_IGNORE_PATTERNS¶

Description

List of patterns to ignore when using a directory as an inventory source

Type

list

Default

[]

Ini

Section

[defaults]

Key

inventory_ignore_patterns
Section

[inventory]

Key

ignore_patterns

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_IGNORE_REGEX

INVENTORY_UNPARSED_IS_FAILED¶

Description

If ‘true’ it is a fatal error if every single potential inventory source fails to parse, otherwise this situation will only attract a warning.

Type

bool

Default

False

Ini

Section: [inventory]
Key: unparsed_is_failed

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_UNPARSED_FAILED

LOCALHOST_WARNING¶

Description

By default Ansible will issue a warning when there are no hosts in the inventory. These warnings can be silenced by adjusting this setting to False.

Type

boolean

Default

True

Version Added

2.6

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: localhost_warning

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_LOCALHOST_WARNING

MAX_FILE_SIZE_FOR_DIFF¶

Description

Maximum size of files to be considered for diff display

Type

int

Default

104448

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: max_diff_size

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_MAX_DIFF_SIZE

MODULE_IGNORE_EXTS¶

Description

List of extensions to ignore when looking for modules to load This is for blacklisting script and binary module fallback extensions

Type

list

Default

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: module_ignore_exts

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_MODULE_IGNORE_EXTS

NETCONF_SSH_CONFIG¶

Description

This variable is used to enable bastion/jump host with netconf connection. If set to True the bastion/jump host ssh settings should be present in ~/.ssh/config file, alternatively it can be set to custom ssh configuration file path to read the bastion/jump host settings.

Default

None

Ini

Section: [netconf_connection]
Key: ssh_config

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_NETCONF_SSH_CONFIG

NETWORK_GROUP_MODULES¶

Type

list

Default

[‘eos’, ‘nxos’, ‘ios’, ‘iosxr’, ‘junos’, ‘enos’, ‘ce’, ‘vyos’, ‘sros’, ‘dellos9’, ‘dellos10’, ‘dellos6’, ‘asa’, ‘aruba’, ‘aireos’, ‘bigip’, ‘ironware’, ‘onyx’, ‘netconf’, ‘exos’, ‘voss’, ‘slxos’]

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: network_group_modules

Environment

Variable

ANSIBLE_NETWORK_GROUP_MODULES
Variable

NETWORK_GROUP_MODULES

Deprecated in

2.12

Deprecated detail

environment variables without ANSIBLE_ prefix are deprecated

Deprecated alternatives

the ANSIBLE_NETWORK_GROUP_MODULES environment variable

OLD_PLUGIN_CACHE_CLEARING¶

Description

Previouslly Ansible would only clear some of the plugin loading caches when loading new roles, this led to some behaviours in which a plugin loaded in prevoius plays would be unexpectedly ‘sticky’. This setting allows to return to that behaviour.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Version Added

2.8

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: old_plugin_cache_clear

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_OLD_PLUGIN_CACHE_CLEAR

PARAMIKO_HOST_KEY_AUTO_ADD¶

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [paramiko_connection]
Key: host_key_auto_add

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_PARAMIKO_HOST_KEY_AUTO_ADD

PARAMIKO_LOOK_FOR_KEYS¶

Type

boolean

Default

True

Ini

Section: [paramiko_connection]
Key: look_for_keys

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_PARAMIKO_LOOK_FOR_KEYS

PERSISTENT_COMMAND_TIMEOUT¶

Description

This controls the amount of time to wait for response from remote device before timing out persistent connection.

Type

int

Default

30

Ini

Section: [persistent_connection]
Key: command_timeout

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_PERSISTENT_COMMAND_TIMEOUT

PERSISTENT_CONNECT_RETRY_TIMEOUT¶

Description

This controls the retry timeout for persistent connection to connect to the local domain socket.

Type

integer

Default

15

Ini

Section: [persistent_connection]
Key: connect_retry_timeout

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_PERSISTENT_CONNECT_RETRY_TIMEOUT

PERSISTENT_CONNECT_TIMEOUT¶

Description

This controls how long the persistent connection will remain idle before it is destroyed.

Type

integer

Default

30

Ini

Section: [persistent_connection]
Key: connect_timeout

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_PERSISTENT_CONNECT_TIMEOUT

PERSISTENT_CONTROL_PATH_DIR¶

Description

Path to socket to be used by the connection persistence system.

Type

path

Default

~/.ansible/pc

Ini

Section: [persistent_connection]
Key: control_path_dir

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_PERSISTENT_CONTROL_PATH_DIR

PLAYBOOK_DIR¶

Description

A number of non-playbook CLIs have a --playbook-dir argument; this sets the default value for it.

Type

path

Version Added

2.9

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: playbook_dir

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_PLAYBOOK_DIR

PLAYBOOK_VARS_ROOT¶

Description

This sets which playbook dirs will be used as a root to process vars plugins, which includes finding host_vars/group_vars The top option follows the traditional behaviour of using the top playbook in the chain to find the root directory. The bottom option follows the 2.4.0 behaviour of using the current playbook to find the root directory. The all option examines from the first parent to the current playbook.

Default

top

Choices

top
bottom
all

Version Added

2.4.1

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: playbook_vars_root

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_PLAYBOOK_VARS_ROOT

PLUGIN_FILTERS_CFG¶

Description

A path to configuration for filtering which plugins installed on the system are allowed to be used. See Blacklisting modules for details of the filter file’s format. The default is /etc/ansible/plugin_filters.yml

Type

path

Default

None

Version Added

2.5.0

Ini

Section

[default]

Key

plugin_filters_cfg

Deprecated in

2.12

Deprecated detail

specifying “plugin_filters_cfg” under the “default” section is deprecated

Deprecated alternatives

the “defaults” section instead
Section

[defaults]

Key

plugin_filters_cfg

PYTHON_MODULE_RLIMIT_NOFILE¶

Description

Attempts to set RLIMIT_NOFILE soft limit to the specified value when executing Python modules (can speed up subprocess usage on Python 2.x. See https://bugs.python.org/issue11284). The value will be limited by the existing hard limit. Default value of 0 does not attempt to adjust existing system-defined limits.

Default

0

Version Added

2.8

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: python_module_rlimit_nofile

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_PYTHON_MODULE_RLIMIT_NOFILE

Variables

name: ansible_python_module_rlimit_nofile

RETRY_FILES_ENABLED¶

Description

This controls whether a failed Ansible playbook should create a .retry file.

Type

bool

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: retry_files_enabled

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_RETRY_FILES_ENABLED

RETRY_FILES_SAVE_PATH¶

Description

This sets the path in which Ansible will save .retry files when a playbook fails and retry files are enabled. This file will be overwritten after each run with the list of failed hosts from all plays.

Type

path

Default

None

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: retry_files_save_path

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_RETRY_FILES_SAVE_PATH

RUN_VARS_PLUGINS¶

Description

This setting can be used to optimize vars_plugin usage depending on user’s inventory size and play selection. Setting to C(demand) will run vars_plugins relative to inventory sources anytime vars are ‘demanded’ by tasks. Setting to C(start) will run vars_plugins relative to inventory sources after importing that inventory source.

Type

str

Default

demand

Choices

demand
start

Version Added

2.10

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: run_vars_plugins

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_RUN_VARS_PLUGINS

SHOW_CUSTOM_STATS¶

Description

This adds the custom stats set via the set_stats plugin to the default output

Type

bool

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: show_custom_stats

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SHOW_CUSTOM_STATS

STRING_CONVERSION_ACTION¶

Description

Action to take when a module parameter value is converted to a string (this does not affect variables). For string parameters, values such as ‘1.00’, “[‘a’, ‘b’,]”, and ‘yes’, ‘y’, etc. will be converted by the YAML parser unless fully quoted. Valid options are ‘error’, ‘warn’, and ‘ignore’. Since 2.8, this option defaults to ‘warn’ but will change to ‘error’ in 2.12.

Type

string

Default

warn

Version Added

2.8

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: string_conversion_action

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_STRING_CONVERSION_ACTION

STRING_TYPE_FILTERS¶

Description

This list of filters avoids ‘type conversion’ when templating variables Useful when you want to avoid conversion into lists or dictionaries for JSON strings, for example.

Type

list

Default

[‘string’, ‘to_json’, ‘to_nice_json’, ‘to_yaml’, ‘to_nice_yaml’, ‘ppretty’, ‘json’]

Ini

Section: [jinja2]
Key: dont_type_filters

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_STRING_TYPE_FILTERS

SYSTEM_WARNINGS¶

Description

Allows disabling of warnings related to potential issues on the system running ansible itself (not on the managed hosts) These may include warnings about 3rd party packages or other conditions that should be resolved if possible.

Type

boolean

Default

True

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: system_warnings

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SYSTEM_WARNINGS

TAGS_RUN¶

Description

default list of tags to run in your plays, Skip Tags has precedence.

Type

list

Default

[]

Version Added

2.5

Ini

Section: [tags]
Key: run

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_RUN_TAGS

TAGS_SKIP¶

Description

default list of tags to skip in your plays, has precedence over Run Tags

Type

list

Default

[]

Version Added

2.5

Ini

Section: [tags]
Key: skip

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_SKIP_TAGS

TASK_DEBUGGER_IGNORE_ERRORS¶

Description

This option defines whether the task debugger will be invoked on a failed task when ignore_errors=True is specified. True specifies that the debugger will honor ignore_errors, False will not honor ignore_errors.

Type

boolean

Default

True

Version Added

2.7

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: task_debugger_ignore_errors

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_TASK_DEBUGGER_IGNORE_ERRORS

TASK_TIMEOUT¶

Description

Set the maximum time (in seconds) that a task can run for. If set to 0 (the default) there is no timeout.

Type

integer

Default

0

Version Added

2.10

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: task_timeout

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_TASK_TIMEOUT

TRANSFORM_INVALID_GROUP_CHARS¶

Description

Make ansible transform invalid characters in group names supplied by inventory sources. If ‘never’ it will allow for the group name but warn about the issue. When ‘ignore’, it does the same as ‘never’, without issuing a warning. When ‘always’ it will replace any invalid characters with ‘_’ (underscore) and warn the user When ‘silently’, it does the same as ‘always’, without issuing a warning.

Type

string

Default

never

Choices

always
never
ignore
silently

Version Added

2.8

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: force_valid_group_names

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_TRANSFORM_INVALID_GROUP_CHARS

USE_PERSISTENT_CONNECTIONS¶

Description

Toggles the use of persistence for connections.

Type

boolean

Default

False

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: use_persistent_connections

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_USE_PERSISTENT_CONNECTIONS

VARIABLE_PLUGINS_ENABLED¶

Description

Whitelist for variable plugins that require it.

Type

list

Default

[‘host_group_vars’]

Version Added

2.10

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: vars_plugins_enabled

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_VARS_ENABLED

VARIABLE_PRECEDENCE¶

Description

Allows to change the group variable precedence merge order.

Type

list

Default

[‘all_inventory’, ‘groups_inventory’, ‘all_plugins_inventory’, ‘all_plugins_play’, ‘groups_plugins_inventory’, ‘groups_plugins_play’]

Version Added

2.4

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: precedence

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_PRECEDENCE

VERBOSE_TO_STDERR¶

Description

Force ‘verbose’ option to use stderr instead of stdout

Type

bool

Default

False

Version Added

2.8

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: verbose_to_stderr

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_VERBOSE_TO_STDERR

WIN_ASYNC_STARTUP_TIMEOUT¶

Description

For asynchronous tasks in Ansible (covered in Asynchronous Actions and Polling), this is how long, in seconds, to wait for the task spawned by Ansible to connect back to the named pipe used on Windows systems. The default is 5 seconds. This can be too low on slower systems, or systems under heavy load. This is not the total time an async command can run for, but is a separate timeout to wait for an async command to start. The task will only start to be timed against its async_timeout once it has connected to the pipe, so the overall maximum duration the task can take will be extended by the amount specified here.

Type

integer

Default

5

Version Added

2.10

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: win_async_startup_timeout

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_WIN_ASYNC_STARTUP_TIMEOUT

Variables

name: ansible_win_async_startup_timeout

WORKER_SHUTDOWN_POLL_COUNT¶

Description

The maximum number of times to check Task Queue Manager worker processes to verify they have exited cleanly. After this limit is reached any worker processes still running will be terminated. This is for internal use only.

Type

integer

Default

0

Version Added

2.10

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_WORKER_SHUTDOWN_POLL_COUNT

WORKER_SHUTDOWN_POLL_DELAY¶

Description

The number of seconds to sleep between polling loops when checking Task Queue Manager worker processes to verify they have exited cleanly. This is for internal use only.

Type

float

Default

0.1

Version Added

2.10

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_WORKER_SHUTDOWN_POLL_DELAY

YAML_FILENAME_EXTENSIONS¶

Description

Check all of these extensions when looking for ‘variable’ files which should be YAML or JSON or vaulted versions of these. This affects vars_files, include_vars, inventory and vars plugins among others.

Type

list

Default

[‘.yml’, ‘.yaml’, ‘.json’]

Ini

Section: [defaults]
Key: yaml_valid_extensions

Environment

Variable: ANSIBLE_YAML_FILENAME_EXT

Environment Variables¶

ANSIBLE_CONFIG¶: Override the default ansible config file

ANSIBLE_CONNECTION_PATH¶

Specify where to look for the ansible-connection script. This location will be checked before searching $PATH.If null, ansible will start with the same directory as the ansible script.

Ansible Configuration Settings¶

The configuration file¶

Avoiding security risks with ansible.cfg in the current directory¶

Relative paths for configuration¶

Common Options¶

ACTION_WARNINGS¶

AGNOSTIC_BECOME_PROMPT¶

ALLOW_WORLD_READABLE_TMPFILES¶

ANSIBLE_CONNECTION_PATH¶

ANSIBLE_COW_PATH¶

ANSIBLE_COW_SELECTION¶

ANSIBLE_COW_WHITELIST¶

ANSIBLE_FORCE_COLOR¶

ANSIBLE_NOCOLOR¶

ANSIBLE_NOCOWS¶

ANSIBLE_PIPELINING¶

ANSIBLE_SSH_ARGS¶

ANSIBLE_SSH_CONTROL_PATH¶

ANSIBLE_SSH_CONTROL_PATH_DIR¶

ANSIBLE_SSH_EXECUTABLE¶

ANSIBLE_SSH_RETRIES¶

ANY_ERRORS_FATAL¶

BECOME_ALLOW_SAME_USER¶

BECOME_PLUGIN_PATH¶

CACHE_PLUGIN¶

CACHE_PLUGIN_CONNECTION¶

CACHE_PLUGIN_PREFIX¶

CACHE_PLUGIN_TIMEOUT¶

COLLECTIONS_ON_ANSIBLE_VERSION_MISMATCH¶

COLLECTIONS_PATHS¶

COLLECTIONS_SCAN_SYS_PATH¶

COLOR_CHANGED¶

COLOR_CONSOLE_PROMPT¶

COLOR_DEBUG¶

COLOR_DEPRECATE¶

COLOR_DIFF_ADD¶

COLOR_DIFF_LINES¶

COLOR_DIFF_REMOVE¶

COLOR_ERROR¶

COLOR_HIGHLIGHT¶

COLOR_OK¶

COLOR_SKIP¶

COLOR_UNREACHABLE¶

COLOR_VERBOSE¶

COLOR_WARN¶

COMMAND_WARNINGS¶

CONDITIONAL_BARE_VARS¶

CONNECTION_FACTS_MODULES¶

COVERAGE_REMOTE_OUTPUT¶

COVERAGE_REMOTE_WHITELIST¶

DEFAULT_ACTION_PLUGIN_PATH¶

DEFAULT_ALLOW_UNSAFE_LOOKUPS¶

DEFAULT_ASK_PASS¶

DEFAULT_ASK_VAULT_PASS¶

DEFAULT_BECOME¶

DEFAULT_BECOME_ASK_PASS¶

DEFAULT_BECOME_EXE¶

DEFAULT_BECOME_FLAGS¶

DEFAULT_BECOME_METHOD¶

DEFAULT_BECOME_USER¶

DEFAULT_CACHE_PLUGIN_PATH¶

DEFAULT_CALLABLE_WHITELIST¶

DEFAULT_CALLBACK_PLUGIN_PATH¶

DEFAULT_CALLBACK_WHITELIST¶

DEFAULT_CLICONF_PLUGIN_PATH¶

DEFAULT_CONNECTION_PLUGIN_PATH¶

DEFAULT_DEBUG¶

DEFAULT_EXECUTABLE¶

DEFAULT_FACT_PATH¶

DEFAULT_FILTER_PLUGIN_PATH¶

DEFAULT_FORCE_HANDLERS¶

DEFAULT_FORKS¶

DEFAULT_GATHER_SUBSET¶

DEFAULT_GATHER_TIMEOUT¶

DEFAULT_GATHERING¶

DEFAULT_HANDLER_INCLUDES_STATIC¶

DEFAULT_HASH_BEHAVIOUR¶

DEFAULT_HOST_LIST¶

DEFAULT_HTTPAPI_PLUGIN_PATH¶

DEFAULT_INTERNAL_POLL_INTERVAL¶

Avoiding security risks with `ansible.cfg` in the current directory¶