AnsibleByExample

Add Secondary Groups to Linux Users with Ansible Playbook

Beginneransibleusermodulelinux
2024-01-013By Luca Berton

Lesson 1 of 15 in Foundations

Ansible Foundations to Production — full curriculum
  1. 1. Introduction to Ansible and Automation
  2. 2. Installing and Configuring Ansible
  3. 3. Running Ad-Hoc Commands
  4. 4. Writing Your First Playbook
  5. 5. Understanding and Using Modules
  6. 6. Variables and Facts
  7. 7. Conditionals and Loops
  8. 8. Handlers and Idempotency
  9. 9. Structuring Projects with Roles
  10. 10. Inventory Management
  11. 11. Using Ansible Vault for Secrets
  12. 12. Debugging and Troubleshooting
  13. 13. Real-World Automation Examples
  14. 14. Final Project: Deploy a Web Server
  15. 15. Bonus - What's Next with Ansible?
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How to add a user to a second group on Linux with Ansible?

Ansible adds a user to second a group

  • ansible.builtin.user
  • Manage user accounts

Today we're talking about the Ansible module user. The full name is ansible.builtin.user, which means that is part of the collection of modules "builtin" with ansible and shipped with it. It's a module pretty stable and out for years, it manages user accounts. It supports a huge variety of Linux distributions, SunOS and macOS and FreeBSD. For Windows, use the ansible.windows.win_user module instead.

Parameters

  • name string - username
  • group - user's primary group (only one)
  • groups list / elements=string - list of groups user will be added to
  • append boolean - no/yes - If yes, add the user to the groups specified in groups. If no, replace.

This module has many parameters, let me highlight the use for our use-case. The only required is "name", which is the username. The primary group is specified in the "group" parameter, every user needs to be part of only one group. The "groups" parameter specifies the list of additional groups that the user will be added to. This type of group sometimes is called also "secondary", "additional" or "supplementary". The parameter "append" is very important. With the "yes" option, the user is going to be added to the specified groups. With the "no" option, all group members are going to be overwritten with the specified groups. So to Conclusion is you specify the "no" option you are going to lose all the previous group associations, please be careful!

Playbook

Add a user to second a group with Ansible Playbook.

code

  • user_group_addsecondary.yml
---
- name: user module Playbook
  hosts: all
  become: true
  vars:
    myuser: "example"
    mygroups:
      - adm
      - sys
  tasks:
    - name: adding secondary group(s)
      ansible.builtin.user:
        name: "{{ myuser }}"
        groups: "{{ mygroups }}"
        append: true

execution

$ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/demo/inventory users_and_groups/user_group_addsecondary.yml
PLAY [user module Playbook] ***************************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] ****************************************************************************
ok: [demo.example.com]
TASK [adding secondary groups] ********************************************************************
changed: [demo.example.com]
PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************************
demo.example.com           : ok=2    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

before execution

$ ssh devops@demo.example.com
[devops@demo ~]$ sudo su
[root@demo devops]# cat /etc/os-release 
NAME="Red Hat Enterprise Linux"
VERSION="8.5 (Ootpa)"
ID="rhel"
ID_LIKE="fedora"
VERSION_ID="8.5"
PLATFORM_ID="platform:el8"
PRETTY_NAME="Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.5 (Ootpa)"
ANSI_COLOR="0;31"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:redhat:enterprise_linux:8::baseos"
HOME_URL="https://www.redhat.com/"
DOCUMENTATION_URL="https://access.redhat.com/documentation/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/"
REDHAT_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT="Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8"
REDHAT_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT_VERSION=8.5
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="Red Hat Enterprise Linux"
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION="8.5"
[root@demo devops]# getent passwd | grep example
example:x:1002:1002:Ansible example:/home/example:/bin/bash
[root@demo devops]# id example
uid=1002(example) gid=1002(example) groups=1002(example),10(wheel)
[root@demo devops]# groups example
example : example wheel
[root@demo devops]# grep example /etc/group
wheel:x:10:example
example:x:1002:
[root@demo devops]#

after execution

$ ssh devops@demo.example.com
[devops@demo ~]$ sudo su
[root@demo devops]# id example
uid=1002(example) gid=1002(example) groups=1002(example),3(sys),4(adm),10(wheel)
[root@demo devops]# groups example
example : example sys adm wheel
[root@demo devops]# getent passwd | grep example
example:x:1002:1002:Ansible example:/home/example:/bin/bash
[root@demo devops]# grep example /etc/group
sys:x:3:example
adm:x:4:example
wheel:x:10:example
example:x:1002:
[root@demo devops]#

code with ❤️ in GitHub

Conclusion

Now you know how to add a user to second a group with Ansible.

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