Ansible Read Files: lookup, slurp & fetch Module Guide — Video Tutorial

How to read files with Ansible. Use lookup plugin, slurp module, fetch module, and file content in conditionals with practical examples.

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Tutorial summary

What you'll learn

Introduction
Understanding the Playbook
Listing Files in a Directory
Reading Content from Each File
Displaying File Contents
Complete Playbook
Conclusion
Read Local File (Controller)
Read Remote File (slurp)
Fetch Remote File to Controller

Introduction Automation is key in modern IT infrastructure management. Ansible, a powerful automation tool, makes it easy to manage complex environments. One of the many tasks you can automate with Ansible is reading content from multiple files. This article will guide you through a simple playbook that reads content from text files within a specified directory and displays the content. Understanding the Playbook The provided playbook is designed to run on the local host and performs the following tasks: 1. **List all text files in the specified directory and its subdirectories**. 2. **Read the content from each text file**. 3. **Display the content of the files**. Let's break down each section of the playbook to understand how it works. Listing Files in a Directory First, we use the `ansible.builtin.find` module to list all text files in the specified directory (`/path/to/your/directory`). The `recurse: yes` option ensures that the search includes subdirectories. ```yaml - name: List files in directory ansible.builtin.find: paths: "/path/to/your/directory" recurse: yes patterns: "*.txt" register: files_list ``` The results are stored in a variable called `files_list`. Reading Content from Each File Next, we initialize an empty list to store the file contents using `ansible.builtin.set_fact`. ```yaml - name: Read content from each file ansible.builtin.set_fact: file_contents: [] ``` We then use a loop to iterate over each file in `files_list.files`. The `ansible.builtin.slurp` module reads the content of each file and stores it in the `slurped_files` variable. The `loop_control` ensures we use a custom loop variable `item_info`. ```yaml - name: Read content from each file ansible.builtin.slurp: src: "{{ item.path }}" loop: "{{ files_list.files }}" register: slurped_files loop_control: loop_var: item - name: Set fact for file contents ansible.builtin.set_fact: file_contents: "{{ slurped_files.results | map(attribute='content') | map('b64decode') | list }}" ``` Displaying File Contents Finally, we display the content of the files using the `ansible.builtin.debug` module. ```yaml - name: Display file contents ansible.builtin.debug: var: file_contents ``` Complete Playbook Here's the complete playbook for reference: ```yaml --- - name: Read content from multiple files hosts: localhost gather_facts: no tasks: - name: List files in directory ansible.builtin.find: paths: "/path/to/your/directory" recurse: yes patterns: "*.txt" register: files_list - name: Read content from each file ansible.builtin.slurp: src: "{{ item.path }}" loop: "{{ files_list.files }}" register: slurped_files loop_control: loop_var: item - name: Set fact for file contents ansible.builtin.set_fact: file_contents: "{{ slurped_files.results | map(attribute='content

About this tutorial

Author: Luca Berton
Difficulty: Advanced
Read time: 7 min
Category: troubleshooting

Topics covered

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