ansible.builtin.replace (v2.5.6) — module

Install Ansible via pip

Install with pip install ansible==2.5.6

Description

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.

Usage examples

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# Before 2.3, option 'dest', 'destfile' or 'name' was used instead of 'path'
- replace:
    path: /etc/hosts
    regexp: '(\s+)old\.host\.name(\s+.*)?$'
    replace: '\1new.host.name\2'
    backup: yes

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# Replace after the expression till the end of the file (requires >=2.4)
- replace:
    path: /etc/hosts
    regexp: '(\s+)old\.host\.name(\s+.*)?$'
    replace: '\1new.host.name\2'
    after: 'Start after line.*'
    backup: yes

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# Replace before the expression till the begin of the file (requires >=2.4)
- replace:
    path: /etc/hosts
    regexp: '(\s+)old\.host\.name(\s+.*)?$'
    replace: '\1new.host.name\2'
    before: 'Start before line.*'
    backup: yes

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# Replace between the expressions (requires >=2.4)
- replace:
    path: /etc/hosts
    regexp: '(\s+)old\.host\.name(\s+.*)?$'
    replace: '\1new.host.name\2'
    after: 'Start after line.*'
    before: 'Start before line.*'
    backup: yes

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- replace:
    path: /home/jdoe/.ssh/known_hosts
    regexp: '^old\.host\.name[^\n]*\n'
    owner: jdoe
    group: jdoe
    mode: 0644

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- 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'

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- name: short form task (in ansible 2+) necessitates backslash-escaped sequences
  replace: dest=/etc/hosts regexp='\\b(localhost)(\\d*)\\b' replace='\\1\\2.localdomain\\2 \\1\\2'

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- name: long form task does not
  replace:
    dest: /etc/hosts
    regexp: '\b(localhost)(\d*)\b'
    replace: '\1\2.localdomain\2 \1\2'

Inputs

    
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 2.3 this option was only usable as I(dest), I(destfile) and I(name).
    required: true

after:
    description:
    - If specified, the line after the replace/remove will start. Can be used in combination
      with C(before). Uses Python regular expressions; see U(http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html).
    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: 'no'
    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, the line before the replace/remove will occur. Can be used in combination
      with C(after). Uses Python regular expressions; see U(http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html).
    version_added: '2.4'
    version_added_collection: ansible.builtin

others:
    description:
    - All arguments accepted by the M(file) module also work here.

regexp:
    description:
    - The regular expression to look for in the contents of the file. Uses Python regular
      expressions; see U(http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html). Uses MULTILINE mode,
      which means C(^) and C($) 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 C(.) special character matches any character
      I(except newlines). A common mistake is to assume that a negated character set like
      C([^#]) will also not match newlines. In order to exclude newlines, they must be
      added to the set like C([^#\n]).
    - Note that, as of ansible 2, 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

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:
    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.

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.
    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