lineinfile - Ensure a particular line is in a file, or replace an existing line using a back-referenced regular expression.

Author:Daniel Hokka Zakrisson

Synopsis

This module will search a file for a line, and ensure that it is present or absent. This is primarily useful when you want to change a single line in a file only. For other cases, see the copy or template modules.

Options

parameter required default choices comments
backrefs no no
  • yes
  • no
Used with state=present. If set, line can contain backreferences (both positional and named) that will get populated if the regexp matches. This flag changes the operation of the module slightly; insertbefore and insertafter will be ignored, and if the regexp doesn't match anywhere in the file, the file will be left unchanged. If the regexp does match, the last matching line will be replaced by the expanded line parameter. (added in Ansible 1.1)
backup no no
  • yes
  • no
Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly.
create no no
  • yes
  • no
Used with state=present. If specified, the file will be created if it does not already exist. By default it will fail if the file is missing.
dest yes
    The file to modify.
    insertafter no EOF
    • EOF
    • *regex*
    Used with state=present. If specified, the line will be inserted after the specified regular expression. A special value is available; EOF for inserting the line at the end of the file. May not be used with backrefs.
    insertbefore no
    • BOF
    • *regex*
    Used with state=present. If specified, the line will be inserted before the specified regular expression. A value is available; BOF for inserting the line at the beginning of the file. May not be used with backrefs. (added in Ansible 1.1)
    line no
      Required for state=present. The line to insert/replace into the file. If backrefs is set, may contain backreferences that will get expanded with the regexp capture groups if the regexp matches. The backreferences should be double escaped (see examples).
      others no
        All arguments accepted by the file module also work here.
        regexp no
          The regular expression to look for in every line of the file. For state=present, the pattern to replace if found; only the last line found will be replaced. For state=absent, the pattern of the line to remove. Uses Python regular expressions; see http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html.
          state no present
          • present
          • absent
          Whether the line should be there or not.
          validate no None
            validation to run before copying into place (added in Ansible 1.4)

            Examples


            - lineinfile: dest=/etc/selinux/config regexp=^SELINUX= line=SELINUX=disabled
            
            - lineinfile: dest=/etc/sudoers state=absent regexp="^%wheel"
            
            - lineinfile: dest=/etc/hosts regexp='^127\.0\.0\.1' line='127.0.0.1 localhost' owner=root group=root mode=0644
            
            - lineinfile: dest=/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf regexp="^Listen " insertafter="^#Listen " line="Listen 8080"
            
            - lineinfile: dest=/etc/services regexp="^# port for http" insertbefore="^www.*80/tcp" line="# port for http by default"
            
            # Add a line to a file if it does not exist, without passing regexp
            - lineinfile: dest=/tmp/testfile line="192.168.1.99 foo.lab.net foo"
            
            # Fully quoted because of the ': ' on the line. See the Gotchas in the YAML docs.
            - lineinfile: "dest=/etc/sudoers state=present regexp='^%wheel' line='%wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL'"
            
            - lineinfile: dest=/opt/jboss-as/bin/standalone.conf regexp='^(.*)Xms(\d+)m(.*)$' line='\1Xms${xms}m\3' backrefs=yes
            
            # Validate a the sudoers file before saving
            - lineinfile: dest=/etc/sudoers state=present regexp='^%ADMIN ALL\=' line='%ADMIN ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL' validate='visudo -cf %s'