Ansible pip module is used when you need to manage Python libraries on the remote servers. There are two prerequisites if you need to use all the features in this module. 1 – The pip package should be installed on the remote server already. You can use the Ansible apt module or similar to install […]
Modules
Working with Ansible facts – retrieving facts
What are Ansible facts? Ansible facts are pieces of information regarding the remote systems to which you have connected. It contains information like IP addresses, the OS installed, Ethernet devices, mac address, time/date related data, hardware information etc. These are very useful for scenarios where you need to take conditional operations based on […]
How to split strings and join them in Ansible
Split commands are useful when you need to divide a large line or a block of lines into a list. The dividing character will be specified in the command itself. So we can split when every ‘space’ character occurs, semicolon appears, a digit occurs etc. Join command is useful when you want values in a […]
How to add lines to a file in Ansible
Depending on your requirements, you might need to add a line to a file in different positions. Start of the file. End of the file. After a line/pattern. Before a line/pattern. Append a string to a line (before/after). Also, there might be other conditions you need to satisfy like, Add multiple lines. Add command line […]
How to uncomment/comment lines in files using Ansible
Uncommenting or commenting a line is usually a task of just adding character or removing a character at the front; Unless it is a block comment. Let us see a few ways of dealing with single line comments in Ansible. Commenting a line in Ansible using replace module Replace module in Ansible is used to […]
How to check if a file/directory exists in Ansible
To get the details of a file or directory in a Linux system, we can use the Ansible stat module. It works similar to the Linux ‘stat’ command. Of course, the module provides much more detail than whether a file exists or not. We can know when the file was last modified, what all permissions […]
How to Create a Directory in Ansible
You will need to create directories or folders in Ansible many times during may of the DevOps process. Although you could do create directories using shell or command module, ansible provides a better and safer method for creating directories using the ‘file’ module. Ansible Directory Creation example To create a directory using the file module, […]
Working with Ansible User Module
Ansible user module helps us to manage user accounts in Linux systems including creating user accounts, deleting them, setting passwords, adding groups to each user, etc. How to create users in Ansible Let us first see how to write a basic task for creating a Linux user using the Ansible user module. There is only […]
User inputs with Ansible Prompt with examples
Working with Ansible Prompts. Sometimes you need input from the user to decide how the playbook should run. Maybe you need to name a directory. Maybe there are plays written for installing multiple versions. And you can install one version based on the user input. Or there may be some data which is sensitive you […]
How to zip files and folders with Ansible
Working with Ansible archive module Until version 2.3, Ansible didn’t support an Archive module(It was available in the developer edition for some time though). Before that, we had to use the shell module or command module to zip a directory in Ansible. From 2.3 you can use the Ansible archive module to compress the files […]
