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blockinfile - Insert/update/remove a text block surrounded by marker lines.

New in version 2.0.

Synopsis
Options
Examples
Notes
- Status
- Maintenance Info

Synopsis

This module will insert/update/remove a block of multi-line text surrounded by customizable marker lines.

Options

parameter	required	default	choices	comments
attributes (added in 2.3)	no	None		Attributes the file or directory should have. To get supported flags look at the man page for chattr on the target system. This string should contain the attributes in the same order as the one displayed by lsattr. aliases: attr
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.
block	no			The text to insert inside the marker lines. If it's missing or an empty string, the block will be removed as if `state` were specified to `absent`. aliases: content
create	no	no	yes no	Create a new file if it doesn't exist.
follow (added in 2.1)	no	no	yes no	This flag indicates that filesystem links, if they exist, should be followed.
group	no			Name of the group that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
insertafter	no	EOF	EOF regex	If specified, the block will be inserted after the last match of specified regular expression. A special value is available; `EOF` for inserting the block at the end of the file. If specified regular expression has no matches, `EOF` will be used instead.
insertbefore	no	None	BOF regex	If specified, the block will be inserted before the last match of specified regular expression. A special value is available; `BOF` for inserting the block at the beginning of the file. If specified regular expression has no matches, the block will be inserted at the end of the file.
marker	no	# {mark} ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK		The marker line template. "{mark}" will be replaced with "BEGIN" or "END".
mode	no			Mode the file or directory should be. For those used to /usr/bin/chmod remember that modes are actually octal numbers (like 0644). Leaving off the leading zero will likely have unexpected results. As of version 1.8, the mode may be specified as a symbolic mode (for example, `u+rwx` or `u=rw,g=r,o=r`).
owner	no			Name of the user that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
path	yes			The file to modify. Before 2.3 this option was only usable as dest, destfile and name. aliases: dest, destfile, name
selevel	no	s0		Level part of the SELinux file context. This is the MLS/MCS attribute, sometimes known as the `range`. `_default` feature works as for seuser.
serole	no			Role part of SELinux file context, `_default` feature works as for seuser.
setype	no			Type part of SELinux file context, `_default` feature works as for seuser.
seuser	no			User part of SELinux file context. Will default to system policy, if applicable. If set to `_default`, it will use the `user` portion of the policy if available.
state	no	present	present absent	Whether the block should be there or not.
unsafe_writes (added in 2.2)	no		yes no	Normally this module uses atomic operations to prevent data corruption or inconsistent reads from the target files, sometimes systems are configured or just broken in ways that prevent this. One example are docker mounted files, they cannot be updated atomically and can only be done in an unsafe manner. This boolean option allows ansible to fall back to unsafe methods of updating files for those cases in which you do not have any other choice. Be aware that this is subject to race conditions and can lead to data corruption.
validate	no	None		The validation command to run before copying into place. The path to the file to validate is passed in via '%s' which must be present as in the example below. The command is passed securely so shell features like expansion and pipes won't work.

Examples

# Before 2.3, option 'dest' or 'name' was used instead of 'path'
- name: insert/update "Match User" configuration block in /etc/ssh/sshd_config
  blockinfile:
    path: /etc/ssh/sshd_config
    block: |
      Match User ansible-agent
      PasswordAuthentication no

- name: insert/update eth0 configuration stanza in /etc/network/interfaces
        (it might be better to copy files into /etc/network/interfaces.d/)
  blockinfile:
    path: /etc/network/interfaces
    block: |
      iface eth0 inet static
          address 192.0.2.23
          netmask 255.255.255.0

- name: insert/update configuration using a local file
  blockinfile:
    block: "{{ lookup('file', './local/ssh_config') }}"
    dest: "/etc/ssh/ssh_config"
    backup: yes

- name: insert/update HTML surrounded by custom markers after <body> line
  blockinfile:
    path: /var/www/html/index.html
    marker: "<!-- {mark} ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK -->"
    insertafter: "<body>"
    content: |
      <h1>Welcome to {{ ansible_hostname }}</h1>
      <p>Last updated on {{ ansible_date_time.iso8601 }}</p>

- name: remove HTML as well as surrounding markers
  blockinfile:
    path: /var/www/html/index.html
    marker: "<!-- {mark} ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK -->"
    content: ""

- name: Add mappings to /etc/hosts
  blockinfile:
    path: /etc/hosts
    block: |
      {{ item.ip }} {{ item.name }}
    marker: "# {mark} ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK {{ item.name }}"
  with_items:
    - { name: host1, ip: 10.10.1.10 }
    - { name: host2, ip: 10.10.1.11 }
    - { name: host3, ip: 10.10.1.12 }

Notes

Note

This module supports check mode.
When using ‘with_*’ loops be aware that if you do not set a unique mark the block will be overwritten on each iteration.
As of Ansible 2.3, the dest option has been changed to path as default, but dest still works as well.

Status

This module is flagged as preview which means that it is not guaranteed to have a backwards compatible interface.

Maintenance Info

For more information about Red Hat’s this support of this module, please refer to this knowledge base article<https://access.redhat.com/articles/rhel-top-support-policies>

For help in developing on modules, should you be so inclined, please read Community Information & Contributing, Testing Ansible and Developing Modules.

© 2012–2017 Michael DeHaan
© 2017 Red Hat, Inc.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/blockinfile_module.html