Documentation

command - Executes a command on a remote node

Synopsis

  • The command module takes the command name followed by a list of space-delimited arguments.
  • The given command will be executed on all selected nodes. It will not be processed through the shell, so variables like $HOME and operations like "<", ">", "|", ";" and "&" will not work (use the shell module if you need these features).

Options

parameter required default choices comments
chdir
 no
cd into this directory before running the command
creates
 no
a filename or (since 2.0) glob pattern, when it already exists, this step will not be run.
executable
 no
change the shell used to execute the command. Should be an absolute path to the executable.
free_form
 yes
the command module takes a free form command to run. There is no parameter actually named 'free form'. See the examples!
removes
 no
a filename or (since 2.0) glob pattern, when it does not exist, this step will not be run.
warn
(added in 1.8)
 no True
if command warnings are on in ansible.cfg, do not warn about this particular line if set to no/false.

Examples

- name: return motd to registered var
  command: cat /etc/motd
  register: mymotd

- name: Run the command if the specified file does not exist.
  command: /usr/bin/make_database.sh arg1 arg2 creates=/path/to/database

# You can also use the 'args' form to provide the options.
- name: This command will change the working directory to somedir/ and will only run when /path/to/database doesn't exist.
  command: /usr/bin/make_database.sh arg1 arg2
  args:
    chdir: somedir/
    creates: /path/to/database

- name: safely use templated variable to run command. Always use the quote filter to avoid injection issues.
  command: cat {{ myfile|quote }}
  register: myoutput

Notes

Note

  • If you want to run a command through the shell (say you are using <, >, |, etc), you actually want the shell module instead. The command module is much more secure as it’s not affected by the user’s environment.
  • creates, removes, and chdir can be specified after the command. For instance, if you only want to run a command if a certain file does not exist, use this.

Status

This module is flagged as stableinterface which means that the maintainers for this module guarantee that no backward incompatible interface changes will be made.

Support

This module is maintained by those with core commit privileges

For more information on what this means please read Module Support

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