Try SpotterReplace all instances of a particular string in a file using a back-referenced regular expression
| "added in version" 1.6 of ansible.builtin"
Authors: Evan Kaufman (@EvanK)
pipInstall with pip install ansible-core==2.16.5
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.
- 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'
mode:
description:
- The permissions the resulting filesystem object should have.
- For those used to I(/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, V('644') or V('1777')) so Ansible receives
a string and can do its own conversion from string into number. Adding a leading
zero (for example, V(0755)) works sometimes, but can fail in loops and some other
circumstances.
- 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, V(u+rwx)
or V(u=rw,g=r,o=r)).
- If O(mode) is not specified and the destination filesystem object B(does not) exist,
the default C(umask) on the system will be used when setting the mode for the newly
created filesystem object.
- If O(mode) is not specified and the destination filesystem object B(does) exist,
the mode of the existing filesystem object will be used.
- Specifying O(mode) is the best way to ensure filesystem objects are created with
the correct permissions. See CVE-2020-1736 for further details.
type: raw
path:
aliases:
- dest
- destfile
- name
description:
- The file to modify.
- Before Ansible 2.3 this option was only usable as O(dest), O(destfile) and O(name).
required: true
type: path
after:
description:
- If specified, only content after this match will be replaced/removed.
- Can be used in combination with O(before).
- Uses Python regular expressions; see U(https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html).
- Uses DOTALL, which means the V(.) special character I(can match newlines).
type: str
version_added: '2.4'
version_added_collection: ansible.builtin
group:
description:
- Name of the group that should own the filesystem object, as would be fed to I(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.
type: str
owner:
description:
- Name of the user that should own the filesystem object, as would be fed to I(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.
type: str
backup:
default: false
description:
- Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original
file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly.
type: bool
before:
description:
- If specified, only content before this match will be replaced/removed.
- Can be used in combination with O(after).
- Uses Python regular expressions; see U(https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html).
- Uses DOTALL, which means the V(.) special character I(can match newlines).
type: str
version_added: '2.4'
version_added_collection: ansible.builtin
others:
description:
- All arguments accepted by the M(ansible.builtin.file) module also work here.
type: str
regexp:
description:
- The regular expression to look for in the contents of the file.
- Uses Python regular expressions; see U(https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html).
- Uses MULTILINE mode, which means V(^) and V($) match the beginning and end of the
file, as well as the beginning and end respectively of I(each line) of the file.
- Does not use DOTALL, which means the V(.) special character matches any character
I(except newlines). A common mistake is to assume that a negated character set like
V([^#]) will also not match newlines.
- In order to exclude newlines, they must be added to the set like V([^#\\n]).
- 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.
required: true
type: str
serole:
description:
- The role part of the SELinux filesystem object context.
- When set to V(_default), it will use the C(role) portion of the policy if available.
type: str
setype:
description:
- The type part of the SELinux filesystem object context.
- When set to V(_default), it will use the C(type) portion of the policy if available.
type: str
seuser:
description:
- The user part of the SELinux filesystem object context.
- By default it uses the V(system) policy, where applicable.
- When set to V(_default), it will use the C(user) portion of the policy if available.
type: str
replace:
default: ''
description:
- 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 V(\\1), or explicitly like V(\\g<1>).
type: str
selevel:
description:
- The level part of the SELinux filesystem object context.
- This is the MLS/MCS attribute, sometimes known as the C(range).
- When set to V(_default), it will use the C(level) portion of the policy if available.
type: str
encoding:
default: utf-8
description:
- The character encoding for reading and writing the file.
type: str
version_added: '2.4'
version_added_collection: ansible.builtin
validate:
description:
- 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 R(handling complex validation,complex_configuration_validation).
type: str
attributes:
aliases:
- attr
description:
- The attributes the resulting filesystem object should have.
- To get supported flags look at the man page for I(chattr) on the target system.
- This string should contain the attributes in the same order as the one displayed
by I(lsattr).
- The C(=) operator is assumed as default, otherwise C(+) or C(-) operators need to
be included in the string.
type: str
version_added: '2.3'
version_added_collection: ansible.builtin
unsafe_writes:
default: false
description:
- 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.
type: bool
version_added: '2.2'
version_added_collection: ansible.builtin