community.general.cronvar module – Manage variables in crontabs

Note

This module is part of the community.general collection (version 9.4.0).

It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install community.general. You need further requirements to be able to use this module, see Requirements for details.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.general.cronvar.

Synopsis

  • Use this module to manage crontab variables.

  • This module allows you to create, update, or delete cron variable definitions.

Requirements

The below requirements are needed on the host that executes this module.

  • cron

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

backup

boolean

If set, create a backup of the crontab before it is modified. The location of the backup is returned in the backup variable by this module.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

cron_file

string

If specified, uses this file instead of an individual user’s crontab.

Without a leading /, this is assumed to be in /etc/cron.d.

With a leading /, this is taken as absolute.

insertafter

string

If specified, the variable will be inserted after the variable specified.

Used with state=present.

insertbefore

string

Used with state=present. If specified, the variable will be inserted just before the variable specified.

name

string / required

Name of the crontab variable.

state

string

Whether to ensure that the variable is present or absent.

Choices:

  • "absent"

  • "present" ← (default)

user

string

The specific user whose crontab should be modified.

This parameter defaults to root when unset.

value

string

The value to set this variable to.

Required if state=present.

Attributes

Attribute

Support

Description

check_mode

Support: none

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

diff_mode

Support: none

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

Examples

- name: Ensure entry like "EMAIL=doug@ansibmod.con.com" exists
  community.general.cronvar:
    name: EMAIL
    value: doug@ansibmod.con.com

- name: Ensure a variable does not exist. This may remove any variable named "LEGACY"
  community.general.cronvar:
    name: LEGACY
    state: absent

- name: Add a variable to a file under /etc/cron.d
  community.general.cronvar:
    name: LOGFILE
    value: /var/log/yum-autoupdate.log
    user: root
    cron_file: ansible_yum-autoupdate

Authors

  • Doug Luce (@dougluce)