community.general.pids module – Retrieves process IDs list if the process is running otherwise return empty list

Note

This module is part of the community.general collection (version 4.8.3).

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.pids.

Synopsis

  • Retrieves a list of PIDs of given process name in Ansible controller/controlled machines.Returns an empty list if no process in that name exists.

Requirements

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

  • psutil(python module)

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

ignore_case

boolean

added in 3.0.0 of community.general

Ignore case in pattern if using the pattern option.

Choices:

  • no ← (default)

  • yes

name

string

The name of the process(es) you want to get PID(s) for.

pattern

string

added in 3.0.0 of community.general

The pattern (regular expression) to match the process(es) you want to get PID(s) for.

Examples

# Pass the process name
- name: Getting process IDs of the process
  community.general.pids:
      name: python
  register: pids_of_python

- name: Printing the process IDs obtained
  ansible.builtin.debug:
    msg: "PIDS of python:{{pids_of_python.pids|join(',')}}"

- name: Getting process IDs of processes matching pattern
  community.general.pids:
    pattern: python(2(\.7)?|3(\.6)?)?\s+myapp\.py
  register: myapp_pids

Return Values

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

Key

Description

pids

list / elements=string

Process IDs of the given process

Returned: list of none, one, or more process IDs

Sample: [100, 200]

Authors

  • Saranya Sridharan (@saranyasridharan)