Change file permission - Ansible module file
How to change file or directory permission with Ansible? I’m going to show you a live demo and some simple Ansible code to change chmod and group of a test.txt file.


How to change file or directory permission with Ansible?
I’m going to show you a live demo and some simple Ansible code. I’m Luca Berton and welcome to today’s episode of Ansible Pilot.
Ansible change file/directory permission
Today we’re talking about the Ansible module file
.
The full name is ansible.builtin.file
, 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 works in a different variety of operating systems.
It manages files and file properties.
For Windows targets, use the ansible.windows.win_file
module instead.
Main Parameters
- path string (dest, name) - file path
- owner string - user
- group string - group
- mode raw - Ex: ‘0644’ or ‘u=rw,g=r,o=r’
- state string - file/absent/directory/hard/link/touch
- 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. The parameter “owner” sets the user that should own the file/directory. The parameter “group” sets the group that should own the file/directory. The parameter “mode” sets the permissions in the UNIX way of the file/directory. The state defines the type of object we are modifying, the default is “file” but we could handle also directories, hardlink, symlink, or only update the access time with the “touch” option. Let me also highlight that we could also specify the SELinux properties.
The Best Resources For Ansible
Video Course
Printed Book
eBooks
- Ansible by Examples: 200+ Automation Examples For Linux and Windows System Administrator and DevOps
- Ansible For Windows By Examples: 50+ Automation Examples For Windows System Administrator And DevOps
- Ansible For Linux by Examples: 100+ Automation Examples For Linux System Administrator and DevOps
- Ansible Linux Filesystem By Examples: 40+ Automation Examples on Linux File and Directory Operation for Modern IT Infrastructure
- Ansible For Containers and Kubernetes By Examples: 20+ Automation Examples To Automate Containers, Kubernetes and OpenShift
- Ansible For Security by Examples: 100+ Automation Examples to Automate Security and Verify Compliance for IT Modern Infrastructure
- Ansible Tips and Tricks: 10+ Ansible Examples to Save Time and Automate More Tasks
- Ansible Linux Users & Groups By Examples: 20+ Automation Examples on Linux Users and Groups Operation for Modern IT Infrastructure
- Ansible For PostgreSQL by Examples: 10+ Examples To Automate Your PostgreSQL database
- Ansible For Amazon Web Services AWS By Examples: 10+ Examples To Automate Your AWS Modern Infrastructure
- Ansible Automation Platform By Example: A step-by-step guide for the most common user scenarios
demo
Let’s jump in a real-life playbook to change file permission with Ansible.
code
- file.yml
---
- name: file module demo
hosts: all
vars:
myfile: "/home/devops/test.txt"
become: false
tasks:
- name: check permission
ansible.builtin.file:
path: "{{ myfile }}"
owner: "devops"
group: "users"
mode: '0777'
Recap
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Academy
Learn the Ansible automation technology with some real-life examples in my
My book Ansible By Examples: 200+ Automation Examples For Linux and Windows System Administrator and DevOps
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