ansible / ansible.builtin / v2.16.5 / module / find Return a list of files based on specific criteria | "added in version" 2.0 of ansible.builtin" Authors: Brian Coca (@bcoca)ansible.builtin.find (v2.16.5) — module
pip
Install with pip install ansible-core==2.16.5
Return a list of files based on specific criteria. Multiple criteria are AND'd together.
For Windows targets, use the M(ansible.windows.win_find) module instead.
This module does not use the C(find) command, it is a much simpler and slower Python implementation. It is intended for small and simple uses. Those that need the extra power or speed and have expertise with the UNIX command, should use it directly.
- name: Recursively find /tmp files older than 2 days ansible.builtin.find: paths: /tmp age: 2d recurse: yes
- name: Recursively find /tmp files older than 4 weeks and equal or greater than 1 megabyte ansible.builtin.find: paths: /tmp age: 4w size: 1m recurse: yes
- name: Recursively find /var/tmp files with last access time greater than 3600 seconds ansible.builtin.find: paths: /var/tmp age: 3600 age_stamp: atime recurse: yes
- name: Find /var/log files equal or greater than 10 megabytes ending with .old or .log.gz ansible.builtin.find: paths: /var/log patterns: '*.old,*.log.gz' size: 10m
# Note that YAML double quotes require escaping backslashes but yaml single quotes do not. - name: Find /var/log files equal or greater than 10 megabytes ending with .old or .log.gz via regex ansible.builtin.find: paths: /var/log patterns: "^.*?\\.(?:old|log\\.gz)$" size: 10m use_regex: yes
- name: Find /var/log all directories, exclude nginx and mysql ansible.builtin.find: paths: /var/log recurse: no file_type: directory excludes: 'nginx,mysql'
# When using patterns that contain a comma, make sure they are formatted as lists to avoid splitting the pattern - name: Use a single pattern that contains a comma formatted as a list ansible.builtin.find: paths: /var/log file_type: file use_regex: yes patterns: ['^_[0-9]{2,4}_.*.log$']
- name: Use multiple patterns that contain a comma formatted as a YAML list ansible.builtin.find: paths: /var/log file_type: file use_regex: yes patterns: - '^_[0-9]{2,4}_.*.log$' - '^[a-z]{1,5}_.*log$'
age: description: - Select files whose age is equal to or greater than the specified time. - Use a negative age to find files equal to or less than the specified time. - You can choose seconds, minutes, hours, days, or weeks by specifying the first letter of any of those words (e.g., "1w"). type: str mode: description: - Choose objects matching a specified permission. This value is restricted to modes that can be applied using the python C(os.chmod) function. - The mode can be provided as an octal such as V("0644") or as symbolic such as V(u=rw,g=r,o=r) type: raw version_added: '2.16' version_added_collection: ansible.builtin size: description: - Select files whose size is equal to or greater than the specified size. - Use a negative size to find files equal to or less than the specified size. - Unqualified values are in bytes but b, k, m, g, and t can be appended to specify bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, and terabytes, respectively. - Size is not evaluated for directories. type: str depth: description: - Set the maximum number of levels to descend into. - Setting recurse to V(false) will override this value, which is effectively depth 1. - Default is unlimited depth. type: int version_added: '2.6' version_added_collection: ansible.builtin paths: aliases: - name - path description: - List of paths of directories to search. All paths must be fully qualified. elements: str required: true type: list follow: default: false description: - Set this to V(true) to follow symlinks in path for systems with python 2.6+. type: bool hidden: default: false description: - Set this to V(true) to include hidden files, otherwise they will be ignored. type: bool recurse: default: false description: - If target is a directory, recursively descend into the directory looking for files. type: bool contains: description: - A regular expression or pattern which should be matched against the file content. - If O(read_whole_file) is V(false) it matches against the beginning of the line (uses V(re.match(\))). If O(read_whole_file) is V(true), it searches anywhere for that pattern (uses V(re.search(\))). - Works only when O(file_type) is V(file). type: str excludes: aliases: - exclude description: - One or more (shell or regex) patterns, which type is controlled by O(use_regex) option. - Items whose basenames match an O(excludes) pattern are culled from O(patterns) matches. Multiple patterns can be specified using a list. elements: str type: list version_added: '2.5' version_added_collection: ansible.builtin patterns: aliases: - pattern default: [] description: - One or more (shell or regex) patterns, which type is controlled by O(use_regex) option. - The patterns restrict the list of files to be returned to those whose basenames match at least one of the patterns specified. Multiple patterns can be specified using a list. - The pattern is matched against the file base name, excluding the directory. - When using regexen, the pattern MUST match the ENTIRE file name, not just parts of it. So if you are looking to match all files ending in .default, you'd need to use C(.*\.default) as a regexp and not just C(\.default). - This parameter expects a list, which can be either comma separated or YAML. If any of the patterns contain a comma, make sure to put them in a list to avoid splitting the patterns in undesirable ways. - Defaults to V(*) when O(use_regex=False), or V(.*) when O(use_regex=True). elements: str type: list age_stamp: choices: - atime - ctime - mtime default: mtime description: - Choose the file property against which we compare age. type: str file_type: choices: - any - directory - file - link default: file description: - Type of file to select. - The 'link' and 'any' choices were added in Ansible 2.3. type: str use_regex: default: false description: - If V(false), the patterns are file globs (shell). - If V(true), they are python regexes. type: bool exact_mode: default: true description: - Restrict mode matching to exact matches only, and not as a minimum set of permissions to match. type: bool version_added: '2.16' version_added_collection: ansible.builtin get_checksum: default: false description: - Set this to V(true) to retrieve a file's SHA1 checksum. type: bool read_whole_file: default: false description: - When doing a C(contains) search, determines whether the whole file should be read into memory or if the regex should be applied to the file line-by-line. - Setting this to C(true) can have performance and memory implications for large files. - This uses V(re.search(\)) instead of V(re.match(\)). type: bool version_added: '2.11' version_added_collection: ansible.builtin
examined: description: Number of filesystem objects looked at returned: success sample: 34 type: int files: description: All matches found with the specified criteria (see stat module for full output of each dictionary) returned: success sample: - '...': '...' checksum: 16fac7be61a6e4591a33ef4b729c5c3302307523 mode: '0644' path: /var/tmp/test1 - '...': '...' path: /var/tmp/test2 type: list matched: description: Number of matches returned: success sample: 14 type: int skipped_paths: description: skipped paths and reasons they were skipped returned: success sample: /laskdfj: '''/laskdfj'' is not a directory' type: dict version_added: '2.12' version_added_collection: ansible.builtin