Watch: Create Directories in Windows Systems Using Ansible

Master directory creation on Windows systems with Ansible’s win_file module. Follow our live Playbook example for efficient directory management.

How to create a directory in Windows-like systems with Ansible?

I'm going to show you a live Playbook and some simple Ansible code.

I'm Luca Berton and welcome to today's episode of Ansible Pilot

Ansible create a directory

> ansible.windows.win_file Creates, touches, or removes files or directories

Today we're talking about the Ansible module win_file.

The full name is ansible.windows.win_file, which means that is part of the collection of modules to interact with windows machines.

It's a module pretty stable and out for years.

It creates, touches, or removes files or directories.

For Linux targets, use the ansible.builtin.file module instead

Main Parameters

path path - file path

state string - file/absent/directory/touch

This module has some parameters to perform different tasks.

The only required is "path", where you specify the filesystem path of the file you're going to edit.

The state defines the type of object we are modifying, the default is "file" but for our use case, we need the "directory" option.

Links

[ansible.windows.win_file](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/windows/win_file_module.html)

## Playbook

How to create an "example" directory/folder in the Desktop of the user on Windows-like systems with Ansible Playbook.

code

``yaml


---
name: win_file module demo
  hosts: all
  vars:
    mydir: 'C:\Users\vagrant\Desktop\example'
  tasks:
    - name: Create a directory
      ansible.windows.win_file:
        path: "{{ mydir }}"
        state: directory



execution

`bash


ansible-pilot $ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/win/inventory create\ directory/directory_create_windows.yml
PLAY [win_file module demo] *
TASK [Gathering Facts] 
ok: [WindowsServer]
TASK [Create a directory] *
changed: [WindowsServer]
PLAY RECAP **
WindowsServer              : ok=2    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0
ansible-pilot $



idempotency

``bash

ansible-pilot $ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/win/inventory create\ directory/directory_create_windows.yml

PLAY [win_file module demo] *