community.general.parted module – Configure block device partitions

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.parted.

Synopsis

  • This module allows configuring block device partition using the parted command line tool. For a full description of the fields and the options check the GNU parted manual.

Requirements

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

  • This module requires parted version 1.8.3 and above.

  • Option align (except undefined) requires parted 2.1 or above.

  • If the version of parted is below 3.1, it requires a Linux version running the sysfs file system /sys/.

  • Requires the resizepart command when using the resize parameter.

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

align

string

Set alignment for newly created partitions. Use undefined for parted default alignment.

Choices:

  • "cylinder"

  • "minimal"

  • "none"

  • "optimal" ← (default)

  • "undefined"

device

string / required

The block device (disk) where to operate.

Regular files can also be partitioned, but it is recommended to create a loopback device using losetup to easily access its partitions.

flags

list / elements=string

A list of the flags that has to be set on the partition.

fs_type

string

added in community.general 0.2.0

If specified and the partition does not exist, will set filesystem type to given partition.

Parameter optional, but see notes below about negative part_start values.

label

string

Disk label type or partition table to use.

If device already contains a different label, it will be changed to label and any previous partitions will be lost.

A name must be specified for a gpt partition table.

Choices:

  • "aix"

  • "amiga"

  • "bsd"

  • "dvh"

  • "gpt"

  • "loop"

  • "mac"

  • "msdos" ← (default)

  • "pc98"

  • "sun"

name

string

Sets the name for the partition number (GPT, Mac, MIPS and PC98 only).

number

integer

The partition number being affected.

Required when performing any action on the disk, except fetching information.

part_end

string

Where the partition will end as offset from the beginning of the disk, that is, the “distance” from the start of the disk. Negative numbers specify distance from the end of the disk.

The distance can be specified with all the units supported by parted (except compat) and it is case sensitive, for example 10GiB, 15%.

Default: "100%"

part_start

string

Where the partition will start as offset from the beginning of the disk, that is, the “distance” from the start of the disk. Negative numbers specify distance from the end of the disk.

The distance can be specified with all the units supported by parted (except compat) and it is case sensitive, for example 10GiB, 15%.

Using negative values may require setting of fs_type (see notes).

Default: "0%"

part_type

string

May be specified only with label=msdos or label=dvh.

Neither part_type nor name may be used with label=sun.

Choices:

  • "extended"

  • "logical"

  • "primary" ← (default)

resize

boolean

added in community.general 1.3.0

Call resizepart on existing partitions to match the size specified by part_end.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

state

string

Whether to create or delete a partition.

If set to info the module will only return the device information.

Choices:

  • "absent"

  • "present"

  • "info" ← (default)

unit

string

Selects the current default unit that Parted will use to display locations and capacities on the disk and to interpret those given by the user if they are not suffixed by an unit.

When fetching information about a disk, it is recommended to always specify a unit.

Choices:

  • "s"

  • "B"

  • "KB"

  • "KiB" ← (default)

  • "MB"

  • "MiB"

  • "GB"

  • "GiB"

  • "TB"

  • "TiB"

  • "%"

  • "cyl"

  • "chs"

  • "compact"

Attributes

Attribute

Support

Description

check_mode

Support: full

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.

Notes

Note

  • When fetching information about a new disk and when the version of parted installed on the system is before version 3.1, the module queries the kernel through /sys/ to obtain disk information. In this case the units CHS and CYL are not supported.

  • Negative part_start start values were rejected if fs_type was not given. This bug was fixed in parted 3.2.153. If you want to use negative part_start, specify fs_type as well or make sure your system contains newer parted.

Examples

- name: Create a new ext4 primary partition
  community.general.parted:
    device: /dev/sdb
    number: 1
    state: present
    fs_type: ext4

- name: Remove partition number 1
  community.general.parted:
    device: /dev/sdb
    number: 1
    state: absent

- name: Create a new primary partition with a size of 1GiB
  community.general.parted:
    device: /dev/sdb
    number: 1
    state: present
    part_end: 1GiB

- name: Create a new primary partition for LVM
  community.general.parted:
    device: /dev/sdb
    number: 2
    flags: [ lvm ]
    state: present
    part_start: 1GiB

- name: Create a new primary partition with a size of 1GiB at disk's end
  community.general.parted:
    device: /dev/sdb
    number: 3
    state: present
    fs_type: ext3
    part_start: -1GiB

# Example on how to read info and reuse it in subsequent task
- name: Read device information (always use unit when probing)
  community.general.parted: device=/dev/sdb unit=MiB
  register: sdb_info

- name: Remove all partitions from disk
  community.general.parted:
    device: /dev/sdb
    number: '{{ item.num }}'
    state: absent
  loop: '{{ sdb_info.partitions }}'

- name: Extend an existing partition to fill all available space
  community.general.parted:
    device: /dev/sdb
    number: "{{ sdb_info.partitions | length }}"
    part_end: "100%"
    resize: true
    state: present

Return Values

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

Key

Description

partition_info

complex

Current partition information

Returned: success

Sample: {"disk": {"dev": "/dev/sdb", "logical_block": 512, "model": "VMware Virtual disk", "physical_block": 512, "size": 5.0, "table": "msdos", "unit": "gib"}, "partitions": [{"begin": 0.0, "end": 1.0, "flags": ["boot", "lvm"], "fstype": "", "name": "", "num": 1, "size": 1.0}, {"begin": 1.0, "end": 5.0, "flags": [], "fstype": "", "name": "", "num": 2, "size": 4.0}], "script": "unit KiB print "}

disk

dictionary

Generic device information.

Returned: success

partitions

list / elements=string

List of device partitions.

Returned: success

script

string

parted script executed by module

Returned: success

Authors

  • Fabrizio Colonna (@ColOfAbRiX)