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community.general.interfaces_file – Tweak settings in /etc/network/interfaces files

Note

This plugin is part of the community.general collection (version 3.8.3).

You might already have this collection installed if you are using the ansible package. It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install community.general.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.general.interfaces_file.

Synopsis

• Manage (add, remove, change) individual interface options in an interfaces-style file without having to manage the file as a whole with, say, ansible.builtin.template or ansible.builtin.assemble. Interface has to be presented in a file.

• Read information about interfaces from interfaces-styled files

Parameters

Parameter	Comments
address_family string	Address family of the interface, useful if same interface name is used for both inet and inet6
attributes aliases: attr string added in 2.3 of ansible.builtin	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 = operator is assumed as default, otherwise + or - operators need to be included in the string.
backup boolean	Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly. Choices: no ← (default) yes
dest path	Path to the interfaces file Default: “/etc/network/interfaces”
group string	Name of the group that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
iface string	Name of the interface, required for value changes or option remove
mode raw	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 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 Ansible 1.8, the mode may be specified as a symbolic mode (for example, u+rwx or u=rw,g=r,o=r). If mode is not specified and the destination file does not exist, the default umask on the system will be used when setting the mode for the newly created file. If mode is not specified and the destination file does exist, the mode of the existing file will be used. Specifying mode is the best way to ensure files are created with the correct permissions. See CVE-2020-1736 for further details.
option string	Name of the option, required for value changes or option remove
owner string	Name of the user that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
selevel string	The level part of the SELinux file context. This is the MLS/MCS attribute, sometimes known as the range. When set to _default, it will use the level portion of the policy if available.
serole string	The role part of the SELinux file context. When set to _default, it will use the role portion of the policy if available.
setype string	The type part of the SELinux file context. When set to _default, it will use the type portion of the policy if available.
seuser string	The user part of the SELinux file context. By default it uses the system policy, where applicable. When set to _default, it will use the user portion of the policy if available.
state string	If set to absent the option or section will be removed if present instead of created. Choices: present ← (default) absent
unsafe_writes boolean added in 2.2 of ansible.builtin	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: no ← (default) yes
value string	If option is not presented for the interface and state is present option will be added. If option already exists and is not pre-up, up, post-up or down, it’s value will be updated. pre-up, up, post-up and down options can’t be updated, only adding new options, removing existing ones or cleaning the whole option set are supported

Notes

Note

• If option is defined multiple times last one will be updated but all will be deleted in case of an absent state

Examples

- name: Set eth1 mtu configuration value to 8000
  community.general.interfaces_file:
    dest: /etc/network/interfaces.d/eth1.cfg
    iface: eth1
    option: mtu
    value: 8000
    backup: yes
    state: present
  register: eth1_cfg

Return Values

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

Key	Description
dest string	destination file/path Returned: success Sample: “/etc/network/interfaces”
ifaces complex	interfaces dictionary Returned: success
ifaces dictionary	interface dictionary Returned: success
eth0 dictionary	Name of the interface Returned: success
address_family string	interface address family Returned: success Sample: “inet”
down list / elements=string	list of down scripts Returned: success Sample: [“route del -net 10.10.10.0/24 gw 10.10.10.1 dev eth1”, “route del -net 10.10.11.0/24 gw 10.10.11.1 dev eth2”]
method string	interface method Returned: success Sample: “manual”
mtu string	other options, all values returned as strings Returned: success Sample: “1500”
post-up list / elements=string	list of post-up scripts Returned: success Sample: [“route add -net 10.10.10.0/24 gw 10.10.10.1 dev eth1”, “route add -net 10.10.11.0/24 gw 10.10.11.1 dev eth2”]
pre-up list / elements=string	list of pre-up scripts Returned: success Sample: [“route add -net 10.10.10.0/24 gw 10.10.10.1 dev eth1”, “route add -net 10.10.11.0/24 gw 10.10.11.1 dev eth2”]
up list / elements=string	list of up scripts Returned: success Sample: [“route add -net 10.10.10.0/24 gw 10.10.10.1 dev eth1”, “route add -net 10.10.11.0/24 gw 10.10.11.1 dev eth2”]

Authors

• Roman Belyakovsky (@hryamzik)