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community.general.random_string – Generates random string

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.random_string.

New in version 3.2.0: of community.general

Synopsis

• Generates random string based upon the given constraints.

Parameters

Parameter	Comments
base64 boolean	Returns base64 encoded string. Choices: no ← (default) yes
length integer	The length of the string. Default: 8
lower boolean	Include lowercase letters in the string. Choices: no yes ← (default)
min_lower integer	Minimum number of lowercase alphabets in the string. If set, overrides lower=false. Default: 0
min_numeric integer	Minimum number of numeric characters in the string. If set, overrides numbers=false. Default: 0
min_special integer	Minimum number of special character in the string. Default: 0
min_upper integer	Minimum number of uppercase alphabets in the string. If set, overrides upper=false. Default: 0
numbers boolean	Include numbers in the string. Choices: no yes ← (default)
override_all string	Override all values of numbers, upper, lower, and special with the given list of characters.
override_special string	Overide a list of special characters to use in the string. If set min_special should be set to a non-default value.
special boolean	Include special characters in the string. Special characters are taken from Python standard library string. See the documentation of string.punctuation for which characters will be used. The choice of special characters can be changed to setting override_special. Choices: no yes ← (default)
upper boolean	Include uppercase letters in the string. Choices: no yes ← (default)

Examples

- name: Generate random string
  ansible.builtin.debug:
    var: lookup('community.general.random_string')
  # Example result: ['DeadBeeF']

- name: Generate random string with length 12
  ansible.builtin.debug:
    var: lookup('community.general.random_string', length=12)
  # Example result: ['Uan0hUiX5kVG']

- name: Generate base64 encoded random string
  ansible.builtin.debug:
    var: lookup('community.general.random_string', base64=True)
  # Example result: ['NHZ6eWN5Qk0=']

- name: Generate a random string with 1 lower, 1 upper, 1 number and 1 special char (atleast)
  ansible.builtin.debug:
    var: lookup('community.general.random_string', min_lower=1, min_upper=1, min_special=1, min_numeric=1)
  # Example result: ['&Qw2|E[-']

- name: Generate a random string with all lower case characters
  debug:
    var: query('community.general.random_string', upper=false, numbers=false, special=false)
  # Example result: ['exolxzyz']

- name: Generate random hexadecimal string
  debug:
    var: query('community.general.random_string', upper=false, lower=false, override_special=hex_chars, numbers=false)
  vars:
    hex_chars: '0123456789ABCDEF'
  # Example result: ['D2A40737']

- name: Generate random hexadecimal string with override_all
  debug:
    var: query('community.general.random_string', override_all=hex_chars)
  vars:
    hex_chars: '0123456789ABCDEF'
  # Example result: ['D2A40737']

Return Values

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

Key	Description
_raw list / elements=string	A one-element list containing a random string Returned: success

Authors

• Abhijeet Kasurde (@Akasurde)