community.crypto.openssl_publickey module – Generate an OpenSSL public key from its private key.

Note

This module is part of the community.crypto collection (version 2.14.0).

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 community.crypto. You need further requirements to be able to use this module, see Requirements for details.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.crypto.openssl_publickey.

Synopsis

  • This module allows one to (re)generate public keys from their private keys.

  • Public keys are generated in PEM or OpenSSH format. Private keys must be OpenSSL PEM keys. OpenSSH private keys are not supported, use the community.crypto.openssh_keypair module to manage these.

  • The module uses the cryptography Python library.

Requirements

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

  • cryptography >= 1.2.3 (older versions might work as well)

  • Needs cryptography >= 1.4 if format is OpenSSH

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

attributes

aliases: attr

string

added in Ansible 2.3

The attributes the resulting filesystem object 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 a timestamp so you can get the original public key back if you overwrote it with a different one by accident.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

force

boolean

Should the key be regenerated even it it already exists.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

format

string

The format of the public key.

Choices:

  • "OpenSSH"

  • "PEM" ← (default)

group

string

Name of the group that should own the filesystem object, as would be fed to chown.

When left unspecified, it uses the current group of the current user unless you are root, in which case it can preserve the previous ownership.

mode

any

The permissions the resulting filesystem object 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 filesystem object does not exist, the default umask on the system will be used when setting the mode for the newly created filesystem object.

If mode is not specified and the destination filesystem object does exist, the mode of the existing filesystem object will be used.

Specifying mode is the best way to ensure filesystem objects are created with the correct permissions. See CVE-2020-1736 for further details.

owner

string

Name of the user that should own the filesystem object, as would be fed to chown.

When left unspecified, it uses the current user unless you are root, in which case it can preserve the previous ownership.

Specifying a numeric username will be assumed to be a user ID and not a username. Avoid numeric usernames to avoid this confusion.

path

path / required

Name of the file in which the generated TLS/SSL public key will be written.

privatekey_content

string

added in community.crypto 1.0.0

The content of the TLS/SSL private key from which to generate the public key.

Either privatekey_path or privatekey_content must be specified, but not both. If state is present, one of them is required.

privatekey_passphrase

string

The passphrase for the private key.

privatekey_path

path

Path to the TLS/SSL private key from which to generate the public key.

Either privatekey_path or privatekey_content must be specified, but not both. If state is present, one of them is required.

return_content

boolean

added in community.crypto 1.0.0

If set to true, will return the (current or generated) public key’s content as publickey.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

select_crypto_backend

string

Determines which crypto backend to use.

The default choice is auto, which tries to use cryptography if available.

If set to cryptography, will try to use the cryptography library.

Choices:

  • "auto" ← (default)

  • "cryptography"

selevel

string

The level part of the SELinux filesystem object 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 filesystem object context.

When set to _default, it will use the role portion of the policy if available.

setype

string

The type part of the SELinux filesystem object context.

When set to _default, it will use the type portion of the policy if available.

seuser

string

The user part of the SELinux filesystem object 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

Whether the public key should exist or not, taking action if the state is different from what is stated.

Choices:

  • "absent"

  • "present" ← (default)

unsafe_writes

boolean

added in Ansible 2.2

Influence when to use atomic operation to prevent data corruption or inconsistent reads from the target filesystem object.

By default this module uses atomic operations to prevent data corruption or inconsistent reads from the target filesystem objects, but sometimes systems are configured or just broken in ways that prevent this. One example is docker mounted filesystem objects, 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 filesystem objects 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:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

Attributes

Attribute

Support

Description

check_mode

Support: full

Can run in check_mode and return changed status prediction without modifying target.

diff_mode

Support: full

Will return details on what has changed (or possibly needs changing in check_mode), when in diff mode.

safe_file_operations

Support: full

Uses Ansible’s strict file operation functions to ensure proper permissions and avoid data corruption.

See Also

See also

community.crypto.x509_certificate

The official documentation on the community.crypto.x509_certificate module.

community.crypto.x509_certificate_pipe

The official documentation on the community.crypto.x509_certificate_pipe module.

community.crypto.openssl_csr

The official documentation on the community.crypto.openssl_csr module.

community.crypto.openssl_csr_pipe

The official documentation on the community.crypto.openssl_csr_pipe module.

community.crypto.openssl_dhparam

The official documentation on the community.crypto.openssl_dhparam module.

community.crypto.openssl_pkcs12

The official documentation on the community.crypto.openssl_pkcs12 module.

community.crypto.openssl_privatekey

The official documentation on the community.crypto.openssl_privatekey module.

community.crypto.openssl_privatekey_pipe

The official documentation on the community.crypto.openssl_privatekey_pipe module.

Examples

- name: Generate an OpenSSL public key in PEM format
  community.crypto.openssl_publickey:
    path: /etc/ssl/public/ansible.com.pem
    privatekey_path: /etc/ssl/private/ansible.com.pem

- name: Generate an OpenSSL public key in PEM format from an inline key
  community.crypto.openssl_publickey:
    path: /etc/ssl/public/ansible.com.pem
    privatekey_content: "{{ private_key_content }}"

- name: Generate an OpenSSL public key in OpenSSH v2 format
  community.crypto.openssl_publickey:
    path: /etc/ssl/public/ansible.com.pem
    privatekey_path: /etc/ssl/private/ansible.com.pem
    format: OpenSSH

- name: Generate an OpenSSL public key with a passphrase protected private key
  community.crypto.openssl_publickey:
    path: /etc/ssl/public/ansible.com.pem
    privatekey_path: /etc/ssl/private/ansible.com.pem
    privatekey_passphrase: ansible

- name: Force regenerate an OpenSSL public key if it already exists
  community.crypto.openssl_publickey:
    path: /etc/ssl/public/ansible.com.pem
    privatekey_path: /etc/ssl/private/ansible.com.pem
    force: true

- name: Remove an OpenSSL public key
  community.crypto.openssl_publickey:
    path: /etc/ssl/public/ansible.com.pem
    state: absent

Return Values

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

Key

Description

backup_file

string

Name of backup file created.

Returned: changed and if backup is true

Sample: "/path/to/publickey.pem.2019-03-09@11:22~"

filename

string

Path to the generated TLS/SSL public key file.

Returned: changed or success

Sample: "/etc/ssl/public/ansible.com.pem"

fingerprint

dictionary

The fingerprint of the public key. Fingerprint will be generated for each hashlib.algorithms available.

Returned: changed or success

Sample: {"md5": "84:75:71:72:8d:04:b5:6c:4d:37:6d:66:83:f5:4c:29", "sha1": "51:cc:7c:68:5d:eb:41:43:88:7e:1a:ae:c7:f8:24:72:ee:71:f6:10", "sha224": "b1:19:a6:6c:14:ac:33:1d:ed:18:50:d3:06:5c:b2:32:91:f1:f1:52:8c:cb:d5:75:e9:f5:9b:46", "sha256": "41:ab:c7:cb:d5:5f:30:60:46:99:ac:d4:00:70:cf:a1:76:4f:24:5d:10:24:57:5d:51:6e:09:97:df:2f:de:c7", "sha384": "85:39:50:4e:de:d9:19:33:40:70:ae:10:ab:59:24:19:51:c3:a2:e4:0b:1c:b1:6e:dd:b3:0c:d9:9e:6a:46:af:da:18:f8:ef:ae:2e:c0:9a:75:2c:9b:b3:0f:3a:5f:3d", "sha512": "fd:ed:5e:39:48:5f:9f:fe:7f:25:06:3f:79:08:cd:ee:a5:e7:b3:3d:13:82:87:1f:84:e1:f5:c7:28:77:53:94:86:56:38:69:f0:d9:35:22:01:1e:a6:60:...:0f:9b"}

format

string

The format of the public key (PEM, OpenSSH, …).

Returned: changed or success

Sample: "PEM"

privatekey

string

Path to the TLS/SSL private key the public key was generated from.

Will be none if the private key has been provided in privatekey_content.

Returned: changed or success

Sample: "/etc/ssl/private/ansible.com.pem"

publickey

string

added in community.crypto 1.0.0

The (current or generated) public key’s content.

Returned: if state is present and return_content is true

Authors

  • Yanis Guenane (@Spredzy)

  • Felix Fontein (@felixfontein)