ansible.builtin.template module – Template a file out to a target host
Note
This module is part of ansible-core
and included in all Ansible
installations. In most cases, you can use the short
module name
template
even without specifying the collections keyword.
However, we recommend you use the Fully Qualified Collection Name (FQCN) ansible.builtin.template
for easy linking to the
module documentation and to avoid conflicting with other collections that may have
the same module name.
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 |
---|---|
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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The string marking the end of a block. Default: |
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The string marking the beginning of a block. Default: |
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The string marking the end of a comment statement. |
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The string marking the beginning of a comment statement. |
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Location to render the template to on the remote machine. |
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Determine whether symbolic links should be followed. When set to When set to Previous to Ansible 2.4, this was hardcoded as Choices:
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Determine when the file is being transferred if the destination already exists. When set to When set to Choices:
|
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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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Determine when leading spaces and tabs should be stripped. When set to Choices:
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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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Specify the newline sequence to use for templating files. Choices:
|
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Overrides the encoding used to write the template file defined by It defaults to The source template file must always be encoded using Default: |
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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. |
|
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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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 |
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Determine when newlines should be removed from blocks. When set to Choices:
|
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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. |
|
The string marking the end of a print statement. Default: |
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The string marking the beginning of a print statement. Default: |
Attributes
Attribute |
Support |
Description |
---|---|---|
Support: full |
Indicates this has a corresponding action plugin so some parts of the options can be executed on the controller |
|
Support: none |
Supports being used with the |
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Support: none |
Forces a ‘global’ task that does not execute per host, this bypasses per host templating and serial, throttle and other loop considerations Conditionals will work as if This action will not work normally outside of lockstep strategies |
|
Support: full |
Can run in check_mode and return changed status prediction without modifying target |
|
Support: full |
Will return details on what has changed (or possibly needs changing in check_mode), when in diff mode |
|
Platform: posix |
Target OS/families that can be operated against |
|
Support: full |
Uses Ansible’s strict file operation functions to ensure proper permissions and avoid data corruption |
|
Support: full |
Can automatically decrypt Ansible vaulted files |
Notes
Note
For Windows you can use ansible.windows.win_template which uses
\r\n
asnewline_sequence
by default.The
jinja2_native
setting has no effect. Native types are never used in the ansible.builtin.template module which is by design used for generating text files. For working with templates and utilizing Jinja2 native types see thejinja2_native
parameter of the ansible.builtin.template lookup.Including a string that uses a date in the template will result in the template being marked ‘changed’ each time.
Since Ansible 0.9, templates are loaded with
trim_blocks=True
.Also, you can override jinja2 settings by adding a special header to template file. that is
#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.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.
See Also
See also
- ansible.builtin.copy
Copy files to remote locations.
- ansible.windows.win_copy
Copies files to remote locations on windows hosts.
- ansible.windows.win_template
Template a file out to a remote server.
Examples
- name: Template a file to /etc/file.conf
ansible.builtin.template:
src: /mytemplates/foo.j2
dest: /etc/file.conf
owner: bin
group: wheel
mode: '0644'
- name: Template a file, using symbolic modes (equivalent to 0644)
ansible.builtin.template:
src: /mytemplates/foo.j2
dest: /etc/file.conf
owner: bin
group: wheel
mode: u=rw,g=r,o=r
- name: Copy a version of named.conf that is dependent on the OS. setype obtained by doing ls -Z /etc/named.conf on original file
ansible.builtin.template:
src: named.conf_{{ ansible_os_family }}.j2
dest: /etc/named.conf
group: named
setype: named_conf_t
mode: 0640
- name: Create a DOS-style text file from a template
ansible.builtin.template:
src: config.ini.j2
dest: /share/windows/config.ini
newline_sequence: '\r\n'
- name: Copy a new sudoers file into place, after passing validation with visudo
ansible.builtin.template:
src: /mine/sudoers
dest: /etc/sudoers
validate: /usr/sbin/visudo -cf %s
- name: Update sshd configuration safely, avoid locking yourself out
ansible.builtin.template:
src: etc/ssh/sshd_config.j2
dest: /etc/ssh/sshd_config
owner: root
group: root
mode: '0600'
validate: /usr/sbin/sshd -t -f %s
backup: yes
Return Values
Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:
Key |
Description |
---|---|
SHA1 checksum of the rendered file Returned: always Sample: |
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Destination file/path, equal to the value passed to dest. Returned: success Sample: |
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Numeric id representing the group of the owner Returned: success Sample: |
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Group name of owner Returned: success Sample: |
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MD5 checksum of the rendered file Returned: changed Sample: |
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Unix permissions of the file in octal representation as a string Returned: success Sample: |
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User name of owner Returned: success Sample: |
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Size of the rendered file in bytes Returned: success Sample: |
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Source file used for the copy on the target machine. Returned: changed Sample: |
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Numeric id representing the file owner Returned: success Sample: |