ansible.builtin.replace module – Replace all instances of a particular string in a file using a back-referenced regular expression
Note
This module is part of ansible-core
and included in all Ansible
installations. In most cases, you can use the short
module name
replace
even without specifying the collections keyword.
However, we recommend you use the Fully Qualified Collection Name (FQCN) ansible.builtin.replace
for easy linking to the
module documentation and to avoid conflicting with other collections that may have
the same module name.
Synopsis
This module will replace all instances of a pattern within a file.
It is up to the user to maintain idempotence by ensuring that the same pattern would never match any replacements made.
Parameters
Parameter |
Comments |
---|---|
If specified, only content after this match will be replaced/removed. Can be used in combination with Uses Python regular expressions; see https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html. Uses DOTALL, which means the |
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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 |
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Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly. Choices:
|
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If specified, only content before this match will be replaced/removed. Can be used in combination with Uses Python regular expressions; see https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html. Uses DOTALL, which means the |
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The character encoding for reading and writing the file. Default: |
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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. |
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The permissions the resulting filesystem object should have. For those used to /usr/bin/chmod remember that modes are actually octal numbers. You must give Ansible enough information to parse them correctly. For consistent results, quote octal numbers (for example, Giving Ansible a number without following either 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, If If Specifying |
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All arguments accepted by the ansible.builtin.file module also work here. |
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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. |
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The regular expression to look for in the contents of the file. Uses Python regular expressions; see https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html. Uses MULTILINE mode, which means Does not use DOTALL, which means the In order to exclude newlines, they must be added to the set like Note that, as of Ansible 2.0, short form tasks should have any escape sequences backslash-escaped in order to prevent them being parsed as string literal escapes. See the examples. |
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The string to replace regexp matches. May contain backreferences that will get expanded with the regexp capture groups if the regexp matches. If not set, matches are removed entirely. Backreferences can be used ambiguously like Default: |
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The level part of the SELinux filesystem object context. This is the MLS/MCS attribute, sometimes known as the When set to |
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The role part of the SELinux filesystem object context. When set to |
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The type part of the SELinux filesystem object context. When set to |
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The user part of the SELinux filesystem object context. By default it uses the When set to |
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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:
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The validation command to run before copying the updated file into the final destination. A temporary file path is used to validate, passed in through ‘%s’ which must be present as in the examples below. Also, the command is passed securely so shell features such as expansion and pipes will not work. For an example on how to handle more complex validation than what this option provides, see handling complex validation. |
Attributes
Attribute |
Support |
Description |
---|---|---|
Support: full |
Can run in check_mode and return changed status prediction without modifying target |
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Support: full |
Will return details on what has changed (or possibly needs changing in check_mode), when in diff mode |
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Platform: posix |
Target OS/families that can be operated against |
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Support: full |
Uses Ansible’s strict file operation functions to ensure proper permissions and avoid data corruption |
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Support: none |
Can automatically decrypt Ansible vaulted files |
Notes
Note
As of Ansible 2.3, the
dest
option has been changed topath
as default, butdest
still works as well.As of Ansible 2.7.10, the combined use of
before
andafter
works properly. If you were relying on the previous incorrect behavior, you may be need to adjust your tasks. See https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/31354 for details.Option
follow
has been removed in Ansible 2.5, because this module modifies the contents of the file sofollow=no
does not make sense.
Examples
- name: Replace old hostname with new hostname (requires Ansible >= 2.4)
ansible.builtin.replace:
path: /etc/hosts
regexp: '(\s+)old\.host\.name(\s+.*)?$'
replace: '\1new.host.name\2'
- name: Replace after the expression till the end of the file (requires Ansible >= 2.4)
ansible.builtin.replace:
path: /etc/apache2/sites-available/default.conf
after: 'NameVirtualHost [*]'
regexp: '^(.+)$'
replace: '# \1'
- name: Replace before the expression till the begin of the file (requires Ansible >= 2.4)
ansible.builtin.replace:
path: /etc/apache2/sites-available/default.conf
before: '# live site config'
regexp: '^(.+)$'
replace: '# \1'
# Prior to Ansible 2.7.10, using before and after in combination did the opposite of what was intended.
# see https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/31354 for details.
- name: Replace between the expressions (requires Ansible >= 2.4)
ansible.builtin.replace:
path: /etc/hosts
after: '<VirtualHost [*]>'
before: '</VirtualHost>'
regexp: '^(.+)$'
replace: '# \1'
- name: Supports common file attributes
ansible.builtin.replace:
path: /home/jdoe/.ssh/known_hosts
regexp: '^old\.host\.name[^\n]*\n'
owner: jdoe
group: jdoe
mode: '0644'
- name: Supports a validate command
ansible.builtin.replace:
path: /etc/apache/ports
regexp: '^(NameVirtualHost|Listen)\s+80\s*$'
replace: '\1 127.0.0.1:8080'
validate: '/usr/sbin/apache2ctl -f %s -t'
- name: Short form task (in ansible 2+) necessitates backslash-escaped sequences
ansible.builtin.replace: path=/etc/hosts regexp='\\b(localhost)(\\d*)\\b' replace='\\1\\2.localdomain\\2 \\1\\2'
- name: Long form task does not
ansible.builtin.replace:
path: /etc/hosts
regexp: '\b(localhost)(\d*)\b'
replace: '\1\2.localdomain\2 \1\2'
- name: Explicitly specifying positional matched groups in replacement
ansible.builtin.replace:
path: /etc/ssh/sshd_config
regexp: '^(ListenAddress[ ]+)[^\n]+$'
replace: '\g<1>0.0.0.0'
- name: Explicitly specifying named matched groups
ansible.builtin.replace:
path: /etc/ssh/sshd_config
regexp: '^(?P<dctv>ListenAddress[ ]+)(?P<host>[^\n]+)$'
replace: '#\g<dctv>\g<host>\n\g<dctv>0.0.0.0'