AnsiblePilot — Master Ansible Automation

AnsiblePilot is the leading resource for learning Ansible automation, DevOps, and infrastructure as code. Browse over 1,400 tutorials covering Ansible modules, playbooks, roles, collections, and real-world examples. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced engineer, our step-by-step guides help you automate Linux, Windows, cloud, containers, and network infrastructure.

Popular Topics

About Luca Berton

Luca Berton is an Ansible automation expert, author of 8 Ansible books published by Apress and Leanpub including "Ansible for VMware by Examples" and "Ansible for Kubernetes by Example", and creator of the Ansible Pilot YouTube channel. He shares practical automation knowledge through tutorials, books, and video courses to help IT professionals and DevOps engineers master infrastructure automation.

Ansible Backup Windows 10/11/2019/2022: win_robocopy Playbook (Guide) — Video Tutorial

How to automate the backup synchronization of an “examples” folder to “examples-backup” on Windows using RoboCopy with Ansible module win_robocopy.

Watch on YouTube · Read the written article

Tutorial summary

What you'll learn

  • How to Backup With Robocopy on Windows with Ansible?
  • Ansible backing up with RoboCopy
  • Parameters
  • Links
  • code
  • execution
  • idempotency
  • before execution
  • after execution
  • Conclusion
How to Backup With Robocopy on Windows with Ansible? I'm going to show you a live Playbook and some simple Ansible code. I'm Luca Berton and welcome to today's episode of Ansible Pilot. Ansible backing up with RoboCopy > `community.windows.win_robocopy`: Synchronizes the contents of two directories using Robocopy Today we're talking about the Ansible module `win_robocopy`. The full name is `community.windows.win_robocopy`, which means that is part of the collection targeting Windows platforms. Synchronizes the contents of two directories using Robocopy. Under the hood, it uses the RoboCopy utility, since that should be available on most modern Windows systems. Parameters - `src` _string_ - source path - absolute or relative - `dest` _string_ - destination path - absolute or relative - `recurse` _string_ - no/yes - Includes all subdirectories - `purge` _string_ - no/yes - Deletes any files/directories found in the destination that do not exist in the source. - `flags` _string_ - Additional flags Let's see the parameter of the `win_robocopy` module. The only mandatory parameters are "src" and "dest" parameters. The "src" parameter is mandatory and specifies the path on the source host that will be synchronized to the destination. The path can be absolute or relative. Same story for the `dest` parameter that specifies the path on the destination host that will be synchronized from the source. Paths could be Local or Remote according to your needs. The "recurse" parameter is default as disabled but you should consider enabling it when you want to synchronize all the subdirectories. If you need to delete all the files and directories found in the destination that do not exist in the source you must enable the purge parameter. It's possible to specify additionals Robocopy parameters via the "flags" parameter, but not all are supported. Links - [community.windows.win_robocopy](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/community/windows/win_robocopy_module.html) - [RoboCopy](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/robocopy) ## Playbook How to Backup With Robocopy on Windows with Ansible Playbook. I'm going to show you how to replicate some "examples" directory tree in "examples-backup" a Windows machine using the RoboCopy utility via the `win_robocopy` module. code ```yaml --- - name: win_robocopy module Playbook hosts: all become: false vars: source: "Desktop/examples" destination: "Desktop/examples-backup" tasks: - name: data syncronization community.windows.win_robocopy: src: '{{ source }}' dest: '{{ destination }}' ``` execution ```bash ansible-pilot $ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/win/inventory copy\ files\ to\ remote\ hosts/win_robocopy.yml PLAY [win_robocopy module Playbook] ******************************************************************* TASK [Gathering Facts] ************************************************************************

About this tutorial

  • Author: Luca Berton
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Read time: 3 min
  • Category: troubleshooting

Topics covered

Related video tutorials