Watch: Search for a String in a File - Ansible module lineinfile

How to automate searching for the string "PasswordAuthentication no" in the "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" file using Ansible Playbook and the lineinfile module.

How to Search for a String in a File with Ansible?

I'm going to show you some simple Ansible code.

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

Ansible module lineinfile

> ansible.builtin.lineinfile: insert, update and remove a single line of text in a file

Today we're talking about the Ansible module lineinfile.

The full name is ansible.builtin.lineinfile, 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 and it supports a large variety of operating systems.

You are able to insert, update and remove a single line of text in a file.

Parameters

path string - file path

line string - text

insertafter/insertbefore string - EOF/regular expression

validate string - validation command

create boolean - create if not exist

state string - present/absent

mode/owner/group - permission

setype/seuser/selevel - SELinux

This module has some parameters to perform any tasks.

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

"line" is the line of text we would like to insert in the file, easy!

By default, the text is going to be inserted at the end of the file, but we could personalize it in a specific position with insertafter/insertbefore.

If there is any tool to validate the file we could specify in the validate parameter, very useful for configuration files.

If the file does not exist we could also "create" it!

Usually, we would like to insert a text line but we could also remove using state in conjunction with parameter absent.

Let me also highlight that we could also specify some permissions or SELinux properties.

Playbook

How to Search for a String in a File.

How to search for a pattern in a file and return the result using only the Ansible built-in lineinfile module.

code

``yaml


---
name: search Playbook
  hosts: all
  vars:
    myfile: "/etc/ssh/sshd_config"
    myline: 'PasswordAuthentication no'
  become: true
  tasks:
    - name: string found
      ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
        name: "{{ myfile }}"
        line: "{{ myline }}"
        state: present
      check_mode: true
      register: conf
      failed_when: (conf is changed) or (conf is failed)

string present

remote ho