Delete a group - Ansible module group

How to delete the "example" group or verify that is not present on your target Linux system or macOS.

October 27, 2021

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#ansible #group #module #user-management #accounting #authorization #authentication #rhel #centos #fedora #ubuntu #debian #suse

How to delete a group in Linux with Ansible?

I’m going to show you a live demo with some simple Ansible code. I’m Luca Berton and welcome to today’s episode of Ansible Pilot

Ansible deletes a group account

ansible.builtin.group
Add or remove groups

Today we’re talking about the Ansible module group. The full name is ansible.builtin.group, 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 adds or removes groups. It supports a huge variety of Linux distributions and macOS. It relies on three Linux commands: groupadd, groupdel and groupmod. For Windows, use the ansible.windows.win_group module instead.

Parameters

name string - group name
state string - present/absent
local string - “local” command alternatives

This module has some parameters to perform some tasks. The only required is “name”, which is the group name. The “state” parameter allows us to create or delete a group, in our use case set to “absent” to delete a group. The “local” parameter allows using the “local” command alternatives on platforms that implement it if you have a central authentication system.

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demo

Let’s jump in a real-life Ansible Playbook to delete a group.

code

group_delete.yml

---
- name: group module demo
  hosts: all
  become: true
  vars:
    mygroup: "example"
  tasks:
    - name: delete group
      ansible.builtin.group:
        name: "{{ mygroup }}"
        state: absent

execution

output

$ ansible-playbook -i demo/inventory group/delete.yml
PLAY [group module demo] **************************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] ****************************************************************************
ok: [demo.example.com]
TASK [delete group] *******************************************************************************
changed: [demo.example.com]
PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************************
demo.example.com           : ok=2    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

verification

$ ssh [email protected]
[devops@demo ~]$ sudo su
[root@demo devops]# getent group | grep example
[root@demo devops]# getent group
root:x:0:
bin:x:1:
daemon:x:2:
sys:x:3:
adm:x:4:
tty:x:5:
disk:x:6:
lp:x:7:
mem:x:8:
kmem:x:9:
wheel:x:10:
cdrom:x:11:
mail:x:12:
man:x:15:
dialout:x:18:
floppy:x:19:
games:x:20:
tape:x:33:
video:x:39:
ftp:x:50:
lock:x:54:
audio:x:63:
users:x:100:devops
nobody:x:65534:
dbus:x:81:
utmp:x:22:
utempter:x:35:
input:x:999:
kvm:x:36:
render:x:998:
systemd-journal:x:190:
systemd-coredump:x:997:
systemd-resolve:x:193:
tss:x:59:
polkitd:x:996:
ssh_keys:x:995:
unbound:x:994:
sssd:x:993:
chrony:x:992:
sshd:x:74:
vagrant:x:1000:
vboxsf:x:991:
slocate:x:21:

code with ❤️ in GitHub

Recap

Now you know how to delete a group in Linux with Ansible. Subscribe to the YouTube channel, Medium, and Website, X (formerly Twitter) to not miss the next episode of the Ansible Pilot.