Disable user account - Ansible module user
How to disable an "example" user in Linux by locking the password and setting the special "nologin" shell without login possibility.


How to disable a user account 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 disable user account
Today we’re talking about the Ansible module user
.
The full name is ansible.builtin.user
, 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 manages user accounts.
It supports a huge variety of Linux distributions, SunOS and macOS, and FreeBSD.
For Windows, use the ansible.windows.win_user
module instead.
Parameters
- name string - username
- state string - present/absent
- password_lock boolean - no/yes
- shell string - “/sbin/nologin”
This module has many parameters to perform any task.
The only required is “name”, which is the username.
The parameter “state” allows us to create or delete a user.
The “password_lock” parameter specifies to lock the user password.
This parameter uses the passwd
tool on Linux systems to disables a password by changing it to a value that matches no possible encrypted value (it adds a ´!´ at the beginning of the password).
This parameter does not disable the user, only locks the password. This parameter does not always mean the user cannot log in using other methods.
The “shell” parameter specifies the user shell. A very special is the nologin
. When a user with that shell logs in, they’ll get a polite message saying ‘This account is currently not available.’ This message can be customized with the file /etc/nologin.txt.
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 into a real-life Ansible Playbook to disable a user.
code
- user_disable.yml
---
- name: user module demo
hosts: all
become: true
vars:
myuser: "example"
tasks:
- name: disable user
ansible.builtin.user:
name: "{{ myuser }}"
state: present
password_lock: true
shell: "/sbin/nologin"
execution
output
$ ansible-playbook -i demo/inventory disable\ user\ account/user.yml
PLAY [user module demo] ***************************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] ****************************************************************************
ok: [demo.example.com]
TASK [disable user] *******************************************************************************
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]
$ sudo su -
[root@demo ~]# getent passwd
example:x:1002:1002::/home/example:/sbin/nologin
[root@demo ~]# passwd -S example
example LK 2021-09-30 0 99999 7 -1 (Password locked.)
[root@demo ~]# grep example /etc/shadow
example:!!:18900:0:99999:7:::
Recap
Now you know how to disable a user account with Ansible. Subscribe to the YouTube channel, Medium, Website, Twitter, and Substack to not miss the next episode of the Ansible Pilot.
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
Donate
Want to keep this project going? Please donate