ansible.builtin.blockinfile – Insert/update/remove a text block surrounded by marker lines
Note
This module is part of ansible-core and included in all Ansible
installations. In most cases, you can use the short
module name
blockinfile even without specifying the collections: keyword.
However, we recommend you use the FQCN for easy linking to the
module documentation and to avoid conflicting with other collections that may have
the same module name.
New in version 2.0: of ansible.builtin
Synopsis
This module will insert/update/remove a block of multi-line text surrounded by customizable marker lines.
Parameters
Parameter |
Comments |
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The attributes the resulting 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. The |
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Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly. Choices:
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The text to insert inside the marker lines. If it is missing or an empty string, the block will be removed as if Default: “” |
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Create a new file if it does not exist. Choices:
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Name of the group that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown. |
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If specified and no begin/ending A special value is available; If specified regular expression has no matches, Choices:
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If specified and no begin/ending A special value is available; If specified regular expression has no matches, the block will be inserted at the end of the file. Choices:
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The marker line template.
Using a custom marker without the Default: “# {mark} ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK” |
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This will be inserted at Default: “BEGIN” |
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This will be inserted at Default: “END” |
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The permissions the resulting file or directory should have. 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 Giving Ansible a number without following one of these rules will end up with a decimal number which will have unexpected results. As of Ansible 1.8, the mode may be specified as a symbolic mode (for example, If If Specifying |
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Name of the user that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown. |
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The file to modify. Before Ansible 2.3 this option was only usable as dest, destfile and name. |
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The level part of the SELinux file context. This is the MLS/MCS attribute, sometimes known as the When set to |
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The role part of the SELinux file context. When set to |
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The type part of the SELinux file context. When set to |
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The user part of the SELinux file context. By default it uses the When set to |
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Whether the block should be there or not. Choices:
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Influence when to use atomic operation to prevent data corruption or inconsistent reads from the target file. 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. Choices:
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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 examples below. The command is passed securely so shell features like expansion and pipes will not work. |
Notes
Note
This module supports check mode.
When using ‘with_*’ loops be aware that if you do not set a unique mark the block will be overwritten on each iteration.
As of Ansible 2.3, the dest option has been changed to path as default, but dest still works as well.
Option follow has been removed in Ansible 2.5, because this module modifies the contents of the file so follow=no doesn’t make sense.
When more then one block should be handled in one file you must change the marker per task.
Examples
# Before Ansible 2.3, option 'dest' or 'name' was used instead of 'path'
- name: Insert/Update "Match User" configuration block in /etc/ssh/sshd_config
blockinfile:
path: /etc/ssh/sshd_config
block: |
Match User ansible-agent
PasswordAuthentication no
- name: Insert/Update eth0 configuration stanza in /etc/network/interfaces
(it might be better to copy files into /etc/network/interfaces.d/)
blockinfile:
path: /etc/network/interfaces
block: |
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.0.2.23
netmask 255.255.255.0
- name: Insert/Update configuration using a local file and validate it
blockinfile:
block: "{{ lookup('file', './local/sshd_config') }}"
path: /etc/ssh/sshd_config
backup: yes
validate: /usr/sbin/sshd -T -f %s
- name: Insert/Update HTML surrounded by custom markers after <body> line
blockinfile:
path: /var/www/html/index.html
marker: "<!-- {mark} ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK -->"
insertafter: "<body>"
block: |
<h1>Welcome to {{ ansible_hostname }}</h1>
<p>Last updated on {{ ansible_date_time.iso8601 }}</p>
- name: Remove HTML as well as surrounding markers
blockinfile:
path: /var/www/html/index.html
marker: "<!-- {mark} ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK -->"
block: ""
- name: Add mappings to /etc/hosts
blockinfile:
path: /etc/hosts
block: |
{{ item.ip }} {{ item.name }}
marker: "# {mark} ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK {{ item.name }}"
loop:
- { name: host1, ip: 10.10.1.10 }
- { name: host2, ip: 10.10.1.11 }
- { name: host3, ip: 10.10.1.12 }
Authors
Yaegashi Takeshi (@yaegashi)