ansible.builtin.template module – Template a file out to a target host — Ansible Documentation (2023)

Table of Contents
Synopsis Parameters Attributes Notes See Also Examples Authors Collection links

'; // Create a banner if we're not on the official docs site if (location.host == "docs.testing.ansible.com") { document.write('

'); } // Create a banner current_url_path = window.location.pathname; var important = false; var msg = '

'; if (startsWith(current_url_path, "/ansible-core/")) { msg += 'You are reading documentation for Ansible Core, which contains no plugins except for those in ansible.builtin. For documentation of the Ansible package, go to the latest documentation.'; } else if (startsWithOneOf(current_url_path, ["/ansible/latest/", "/ansible/7/"])) { /* temp extra banner to advertise AnsibeFest2021 */ banner += extra_banner; msg += 'You are reading the latest (stable) community version of the Ansible documentation. If you are a Red Hat customer, refer to the Ansible Automation Platform Life Cycle page for subscription details.'; } else if (startsWith(current_url_path, "/ansible/2.9/")) { msg += 'You are reading the latest Red Hat released version of the Ansible documentation. Community users can use this version, or select latest from the version selector to the left for the most recent community version.'; } else if (startsWith(current_url_path, "/ansible/devel/")) { /* temp extra banner to advertise AnsibleFest2021 */ banner += extra_banner; /* temp banner to advertise survey important = true; msg += 'Please take our Docs survey before December 31 to help us improve Ansible documentation.'; */ msg += 'You are reading the devel version of the Ansible documentation - this version is not guaranteed stable. Use the version selection to the left if you want the latest (stable) released version.'; } else { msg += 'You are reading an older version of the Ansible documentation. Use the version selection to the left if you want the latest (stable) released version.'; } msg += '

'; banner += important ? '
' : ''; banner += msg; banner += important ? '
' : ''; banner += '

Note

This module is part of ansible-core and included in all Ansibleinstallations. In most cases, you can use the shortmodule nametemplate even without specifying the collections: keyword.However, we recommend you use the FQCN for easy linking to themodule documentation and to avoid conflicting with other collections that may havethe same module name.

Synopsis

Note

This module has a corresponding action plugin.

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

attributes

aliases: attr

string

added in Ansible 2.3

The attributes the resulting filesystem object should have.

To get supported flags look at the man page for chattr on the target system.

This string should contain the attributes in the same order as the one displayed by lsattr.

The = operator is assumed as default, otherwise + or - operators need to be included in the string.

backup

boolean

Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

block_end_string

string

added in Ansible 2.4

The string marking the end of a block.

Default: "%}"

block_start_string

string

added in Ansible 2.4

The string marking the beginning of a block.

Default: "{%"

comment_end_string

string

added in ansible-core 2.12

The string marking the end of a comment statement.

comment_start_string

string

added in ansible-core 2.12

The string marking the beginning of a comment statement.

dest

path / required

Location to render the template to on the remote machine.

follow

boolean

added in Ansible 2.4

Determine whether symbolic links should be followed.

When set to true symbolic links will be followed, if they exist.

When set to false symbolic links will not be followed.

Previous to Ansible 2.4, this was hardcoded as true.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

force

boolean

Determine when the file is being transferred if the destination already exists.

When set to yes, replace the remote file when contents are different than the source.

When set to no, the file will only be transferred if the destination does not exist.

Choices:

  • false

  • true ← (default)

group

string

Name of the group that should own the filesystem object, as would be fed to 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.

lstrip_blocks

boolean

added in Ansible 2.6

Determine when leading spaces and tabs should be stripped.

When set to yes leading spaces and tabs are stripped from the start of a line to a block.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

mode

any

The permissions the resulting filesystem object should have.

For those used to /usr/bin/chmod remember that modes are actually octal numbers. You must either add a leading zero so that Ansible’s YAML parser knows it is an octal number (like 0644 or 01777) or quote it (like '644' or '1777') so Ansible receives a string and can do its own conversion from string into number.

Giving Ansible a number without following one 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, u+rwx or u=rw,g=r,o=r).

If mode is not specified and the destination filesystem object does not exist, the default umask on the system will be used when setting the mode for the newly created filesystem object.

If mode is not specified and the destination filesystem object does exist, the mode of the existing filesystem object will be used.

Specifying mode is the best way to ensure filesystem objects are created with the correct permissions. See CVE-2020-1736 for further details.

newline_sequence

string

added in Ansible 2.4

Specify the newline sequence to use for templating files.

Choices:

  • "\\n" ← (default)

  • "\\r"

  • "\\r\\n"

output_encoding

string

added in Ansible 2.7

Overrides the encoding used to write the template file defined by dest.

It defaults to utf-8, but any encoding supported by python can be used.

The source template file must always be encoded using utf-8, for homogeneity.

Default: "utf-8"

owner

string

Name of the user that should own the filesystem object, as would be fed to chown.

When left unspecified, it uses the current user unless you are root, in which case it can preserve the previous ownership.

selevel

string

The level part of the SELinux filesystem object context.

This is the MLS/MCS attribute, sometimes known as the range.

When set to _default, it will use the level portion of the policy if available.

serole

string

The role part of the SELinux filesystem object context.

When set to _default, it will use the role portion of the policy if available.

setype

string

The type part of the SELinux filesystem object context.

When set to _default, it will use the type portion of the policy if available.

seuser

string

The user part of the SELinux filesystem object context.

By default it uses the system policy, where applicable.

When set to _default, it will use the user portion of the policy if available.

src

path / required

Path of a Jinja2 formatted template on the Ansible controller.

This can be a relative or an absolute path.

The file must be encoded with utf-8 but output_encoding can be used to control the encoding of the output template.

trim_blocks

boolean

added in Ansible 2.4

Determine when newlines should be removed from blocks.

When set to yes the first newline after a block is removed (block, not variable tag!).

Choices:

  • false

  • true ← (default)

unsafe_writes

boolean

added in Ansible 2.2

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.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

validate

string

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 Complex configuration validation.

variable_end_string

string

added in Ansible 2.4

The string marking the end of a print statement.

Default: "}}"

variable_start_string

string

added in Ansible 2.4

The string marking the beginning of a print statement.

Default: "{{"

Attributes

Attribute

Support

Description

action

Support: full

Indicates this has a corresponding action plugin so some parts of the options can be executed on the controller

async

Support: none

Supports being used with the async keyword

bypass_host_loop

Support: none

Forces a ‘global’ task that does not execute per host, this bypasses per host templating and serial, throttle and other loop considerations

Conditionals will work as if run_once is being used, variables used will be from the first available host

This action will not work normally outside of lockstep strategies

check_mode

Support: full

Can run in check_mode and return changed status prediction without modifying target

diff_mode

Support: full

Will return details on what has changed (or possibly needs changing in check_mode), when in diff mode

platform

Platform:posix

Target OS/families that can be operated against

safe_file_operations

Support: full

Uses Ansible’s strict file operation functions to ensure proper permissions and avoid data corruption

vault

Support: full

Can automatically decrypt Ansible vaulted files

Notes

Note

  • For Windows you can use ansible.windows.win_template which uses \r\n as newline_sequence by default.

  • The jinja2_native setting has no effect. Native types are never used in the template module which is by design used for generating text files. For working with templates and utilizing Jinja2 native types see the jinja2_native parameter of the template lookup.

  • Including a string that uses a date in the template will result in the template being marked ‘changed’ each time.

  • Since Ansible 0.9, templates are loaded with trim_blocks=True.

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  • Also, you can override jinja2 settings by adding a special header to template file. i.e. #jinja2:variable_start_string:'[%', variable_end_string:'%]', trim_blocks: False which changes the variable interpolation markers to [% var %] instead of {{ var }}. This is the best way to prevent evaluation of things that look like, but should not be Jinja2.

  • To find Byte Order Marks in files, use Format-Hex <file> -Count 16 on Windows, and use od -a -t x1 -N 16 <file> on Linux.

See Also

See also

ansible.builtin.copy

The official documentation on the ansible.builtin.copy module.

ansible.windows.win_copy

The official documentation on the ansible.windows.win_copy module.

ansible.windows.win_template

The official documentation on the ansible.windows.win_template module.

Examples

- name: Template a file to /etc/file.conf ansible.builtin.template: src: /mytemplates/foo.j2 dest: /etc/file.conf owner: bin group: wheel mode: '0644'- name: Template a file, using symbolic modes (equivalent to 0644) ansible.builtin.template: src: /mytemplates/foo.j2 dest: /etc/file.conf owner: bin group: wheel mode: u=rw,g=r,o=r- name: Copy a version of named.conf that is dependent on the OS. setype obtained by doing ls -Z /etc/named.conf on original file ansible.builtin.template: src: named.conf_{{ ansible_os_family }}.j2 dest: /etc/named.conf group: named setype: named_conf_t mode: 0640- name: Create a DOS-style text file from a template ansible.builtin.template: src: config.ini.j2 dest: /share/windows/config.ini newline_sequence: '\r\n'- name: Copy a new sudoers file into place, after passing validation with visudo ansible.builtin.template: src: /mine/sudoers dest: /etc/sudoers validate: /usr/sbin/visudo -cf %s- name: Update sshd configuration safely, avoid locking yourself out ansible.builtin.template: src: etc/ssh/sshd_config.j2 dest: /etc/ssh/sshd_config owner: root group: root mode: '0600' validate: /usr/sbin/sshd -t -f %s backup: yes

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