ansible.windows.win_template module – Template a file out to a remote server
Note
This module is part of the ansible.windows collection (version 1.14.0).
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 ansible.windows
.
To use it in a playbook, specify: ansible.windows.win_template
.
Synopsis
Templates are processed by the Jinja2 templating language.
Documentation on the template formatting can be found in the Template Designer Documentation.
Additional variables listed below can be used in templates.
ansible_managed
(configurable via thedefaults
section ofansible.cfg
) contains a string which can be used to describe the template name, host, modification time of the template file and the owner uid.template_host
contains the node name of the template’s machine.template_uid
is the numeric user id of the owner.template_path
is the path of the template.template_fullpath
is the absolute path of the template.template_destpath
is the path of the template on the remote system (added in 2.8).template_run_date
is the date that the template was rendered.
Note
This module has a corresponding action plugin.
Parameters
Parameter |
Comments |
---|---|
Determine whether a backup should be created. When set to Choices:
|
|
The string marking the end of a block. Default: |
|
The string marking the beginning of a block. Default: |
|
Location to render the template to on the remote machine. |
|
Determine when the file is being transferred if the destination already exists. When set to When set to Choices:
|
|
Determine when leading spaces and tabs should be stripped. When set to This functionality requires Jinja 2.7 or newer. Choices:
|
|
Specify the newline sequence to use for templating files. Choices:
|
|
Overrides the encoding used to write the template file defined by It defaults to The source template file must always be encoded using Default: |
|
Path of a Jinja2 formatted template on the Ansible controller. This can be a relative or an absolute path. The file must be encoded with |
|
Determine when newlines should be removed from blocks. When set to Choices:
|
|
The string marking the end of a print statement. Default: |
|
The string marking the beginning of a print statement. Default: |
Notes
Note
Including a string that uses a date in the template will result in the template being marked ‘changed’ each time.
Also, you can override jinja2 settings by adding a special header to template file. i.e.
#jinja2:variable_start_string:'[%', variable_end_string:'%]', trim_blocks: False
which changes the variable interpolation markers to[% var %]
instead of{{ var }}
. This is the best way to prevent evaluation of things that look like, but should not be Jinja2.Using raw/endraw in Jinja2 will not work as you expect because templates in Ansible are recursively evaluated.
To find Byte Order Marks in files, use
Format-Hex <file> -Count 16
on Windows, and useod -a -t x1 -N 16 <file>
on Linux.Beware fetching files from windows machines when creating templates because certain tools, such as Powershell ISE, and regedit’s export facility add a Byte Order Mark as the first character of the file, which can cause tracebacks.
You can use the ansible.windows.win_copy module with the
content:
option if you prefer the template inline, as part of the playbook.For Linux you can use ansible.builtin.template which uses ‘\\n’ as
newline_sequence
by default.
See Also
See also
- ansible.windows.win_copy
The official documentation on the ansible.windows.win_copy module.
- ansible.builtin.copy
The official documentation on the ansible.builtin.copy module.
- ansible.builtin.template
The official documentation on the ansible.builtin.template module.
Examples
- name: Create a file from a Jinja2 template
ansible.windows.win_template:
src: /mytemplates/file.conf.j2
dest: C:\Temp\file.conf
- name: Create a Unix-style file from a Jinja2 template
ansible.windows.win_template:
src: unix/config.conf.j2
dest: C:\share\unix\config.conf
newline_sequence: '\n'
backup: true
Return Values
Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:
Key |
Description |
---|---|
Name of the backup file that was created. Returned: if backup=true Sample: |