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copy - Copies files to remote locations

Synopsis

  • The copy module copies a file from the local or remote machine to a location on the remote machine. Use the fetch module to copy files from remote locations to the local box. If you need variable interpolation in copied files, use the template module.
  • For Windows targets, use the win_copy module instead.

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.
content
no
When used instead of src, sets the contents of a file directly to the specified value. For anything advanced or with formatting also look at the template module.
decrypt
(added in 2.4)
no Yes
  • yes
  • no
This option controls the autodecryption of source files using vault.
dest
yes
Remote absolute path where the file should be copied to. If src is a directory, this must be a directory too. If dest is a nonexistent path and if either dest ends with "/" or src is a directory, dest is created. If src and dest are files, the parent directory of dest isn't created: the task fails if it doesn't already exist.
directory_mode
(added in 1.5)
no
When doing a recursive copy set the mode for the directories. If this is not set we will use the system defaults. The mode is only set on directories which are newly created, and will not affect those that already existed.
follow
(added in 1.8)
no no
  • yes
  • no
This flag indicates that filesystem links in the destination, if they exist, should be followed.
force
no yes
  • yes
  • no
the default is yes, which will replace the remote file when contents are different than the source. If no, the file will only be transferred if the destination does not exist.
aliases: thirsty
group
no
Name of the group that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
local_follow
(added in 2.4)
no yes
  • yes
  • no
This flag indicates that filesystem links in the source tree, if they exist, should be followed.
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.
remote_src
(added in 2.0)
no no
  • yes
  • no
If no, it will search for src at originating/master machine.
If yes it will go to the remote/target machine for the src. Default is no.
Currently remote_src does not support recursive copying.
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.
src
no
Local path to a file to copy to the remote server; can be absolute or relative. If path is a directory, it is copied recursively. In this case, if path ends with "/", only inside contents of that directory are copied to destination. Otherwise, if it does not end with "/", the directory itself with all contents is copied. This behavior is similar to Rsync.
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

# Example from Ansible Playbooks
- copy:
    src: /srv/myfiles/foo.conf
    dest: /etc/foo.conf
    owner: foo
    group: foo
    mode: 0644

# The same example as above, but using a symbolic mode equivalent to 0644
- copy:
    src: /srv/myfiles/foo.conf
    dest: /etc/foo.conf
    owner: foo
    group: foo
    mode: u=rw,g=r,o=r

# Another symbolic mode example, adding some permissions and removing others
- copy:
    src: /srv/myfiles/foo.conf
    dest: /etc/foo.conf
    owner: foo
    group: foo
    mode: u+rw,g-wx,o-rwx

# Copy a new "ntp.conf file into place, backing up the original if it differs from the copied version
- copy:
    src: /mine/ntp.conf
    dest: /etc/ntp.conf
    owner: root
    group: root
    mode: 0644
    backup: yes

# Copy a new "sudoers" file into place, after passing validation with visudo
- copy:
    src: /mine/sudoers
    dest: /etc/sudoers
    validate: /usr/sbin/visudo -cf %s

# Copy a "sudoers" file on the remote machine for editing
- copy:
    src: /etc/sudoers
    dest: /etc/sudoers.edit
    remote_src: yes
    validate: /usr/sbin/visudo -cf %s

# Create a CSV file from your complete inventory using an inline template
- hosts: all
  tasks:
  - copy:
      content: |
        HOSTNAME;IPADDRESS;FQDN;OSNAME;OSVERSION;PROCESSOR;ARCHITECTURE;MEMORY;
        {% for host in hostvars %}
        {%   set vars = hostvars[host|string] %}
        {{ vars.ansible_hostname }};{{ vars.remote_host }};{{ vars.ansible_fqdn }};{{ vars.ansible_distribution }};{{ vars.ansible_distribution_version }};{{ vars.ansible_processor[1] }};{{ vars.ansible_architecture }};{{ (vars.ansible_memtotal_mb/1024)|round|int }};  # NOQA
        {% endfor %}
      dest: /some/path/systems.csv
      backup: yes
    run_once: yes
    delegate_to: localhost

Return Values

Common return values are documented here Return Values, the following are the fields unique to this module:

name description returned type sample
src
source file used for the copy on the target machine
changed string /home/httpd/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1423796390.97-147729857856000/source
backup_file
name of backup file created
changed and if backup=yes string /path/to/file.txt.2015-02-12@22:09~
uid
owner id of the file, after execution
success int 100
dest
destination file/path
success string /path/to/file.txt
checksum
sha1 checksum of the file after running copy
success string 6e642bb8dd5c2e027bf21dd923337cbb4214f827
md5sum
md5 checksum of the file after running copy
when supported string 2a5aeecc61dc98c4d780b14b330e3282
state
state of the target, after execution
success string file
gid
group id of the file, after execution
success int 100
mode
permissions of the target, after execution
success string 420
owner
owner of the file, after execution
success string httpd
group
group of the file, after execution
success string httpd
size
size of the target, after execution
success int 1220

Notes

Note

  • The copy module recursively copy facility does not scale to lots (>hundreds) of files. For alternative, see synchronize module, which is a wrapper around rsync.
  • For Windows targets, use the win_copy module instead.

Status

This module is flagged as stableinterface which means that the maintainers for this module guarantee that no backward incompatible interface changes will be made.

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/copy_module.html