ansible.builtin.template module – Template a file out to a target host

Note

This module is part of ansible-core and included in all Ansible installations. In most cases, you can use the short module name template even without specifying the collections keyword. However, we recommend you use the Fully Qualified Collection Name (FQCN) ansible.builtin.template for easy linking to the module documentation and to avoid conflicting with other collections that may have the same module name.

Synopsis

  • Templates are processed by the Jinja2 templating language.

  • Documentation on the template formatting can be found in the Template Designer Documentation.

  • Additional variables listed below can be used in templates.

  • ansible_managed (configurable via the defaults section of ansible.cfg) contains a string which can be used to describe the template name, host, modification time of the template file and the owner uid.

  • template_host contains the node name of the template’s machine.

  • template_uid is the numeric user id of the owner.

  • template_path is the path of the template.

  • template_fullpath is the absolute path of the template.

  • template_destpath is the path of the template on the remote system (added in 2.8).

  • template_run_date is the date that the template was rendered.

Note

This module has a corresponding action plugin.

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

attributes

aliases: attr

string

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

The string marking the end of a block.

Default: "%}"

block_start_string

string

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

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

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 give Ansible enough information to parse them correctly. For consistent results, quote octal numbers (for example, '644' or '1777') so Ansible receives a string and can do its own conversion from string into number. Adding a leading zero (for example, 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, 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

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.

Specifying a numeric username will be assumed to be a user ID and not a username. Avoid numeric usernames to avoid this confusion.

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

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

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 handling complex validation.

variable_end_string

string

The string marking the end of a print statement.

Default: "}}"

variable_start_string

string

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, if not supported the action will be skipped.

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 ansible.builtin.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 ansible.builtin.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.

  • Also, you can override jinja2 settings by adding a special header to template file. that is #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

Copy files to remote locations.

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

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key

Description

checksum

string

SHA1 checksum of the rendered file

Returned: always

Sample: "373296322247ab85d26d5d1257772757e7afd172"

dest

string

Destination file/path, equal to the value passed to dest.

Returned: success

Sample: "/path/to/file.txt"

gid

integer

Numeric id representing the group of the owner

Returned: success

Sample: 1003

group

string

Group name of owner

Returned: success

Sample: "www-data"

md5sum

string

MD5 checksum of the rendered file

Returned: changed

Sample: "d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e"

mode

string

Unix permissions of the file in octal representation as a string

Returned: success

Sample: "1755"

owner

string

User name of owner

Returned: success

Sample: "httpd"

size

integer

Size of the rendered file in bytes

Returned: success

Sample: 42

src

string

Source file used for the copy on the target machine.

Returned: changed

Sample: "/home/httpd/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1423796390.97-147729857856000/source"

uid

integer

Numeric id representing the file owner

Returned: success

Sample: 1003

Authors

  • Ansible Core Team

  • Michael DeHaan