Ansible fetch Module: Download Files from Remote Hosts (Complete Guide) — Video Tutorial

Complete guide to Ansible fetch module (ansible.builtin.fetch). Download and retrieve files from remote hosts to local machine with flat, dest.

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Tutorial summary

What you'll learn

How to copy files from remote hosts with Ansible?
Ansible copy files from remote hosts
Parameters
Demo
Conclusion
Advanced Fetch Examples
Download with flat directory structure
Collect logs from all servers
Download and verify checksum
Fetch only if file exists

How to copy files from remote hosts with Ansible? I'm going to show you a live Playbook with some simple Ansible code. I'm Luca Berton and welcome to today's episode of Ansible Pilot Ansible copy files from remote hosts Today we're talking about Ansible module `fetch`. The full name is `ansible.builtin.fetch` which means is part of the collection of modules "builtin" with ansible and shipped with it. This module is pretty stable and out for years. The purpose is to copy files from remote locations. Please note that the opposite is done by [Ansible copy module](/articles/copy-files-to-remote-hosts-ansible-module-copy). Parameters - `dest` _path_ - `src` _string_ - `fail_on_missing` _boolean_ - `validate_checksum` _boolean_ - `flat` _boolean_ The parameter list is pretty wide but I'll summarize the most useful. The only required parameter is "`dest`" which specifies a directory to save the file into and the "`src`" specifies the source files in the remote hosts. It must be a file, not a directory. The "`fail_on_missing`" boolean is set to true so the task is going to fail if the file doesn't exist. The file is going to be transferred and validate in the source and the destination with a checksum. If we don't want this behavior we could override with the "validate_checksum" option. The "`flat`" option allows you to override the default behavior of appending hostname/path/to/file to the destination. Demo Let's jump in a real-life playbook to copy files from remote hosts with Ansible - _fetch.yml_ ```yaml --- - name: fetch module Playbook hosts: all become: true vars: log_file: "/var/log/messages" dump_dir: "logs" tasks: - name: fetch log ansible.builtin.fetch: src: "{{ log_file }}" dest: "{{ dump_dir }}" ``` [code with ❤️ in GitHub](https://github.com/lucab85/ansible-pilot/tree/master/copy%20files%20from%20remote%20hosts) Conclusion Now you know how to Copy files to remote hosts with Ansible. Advanced Fetch Examples Download with flat directory structure By default, `fetch` creates a directory tree like `host/path/to/file`. Use `flat: true` for simpler output: ```yaml - name: Download config (flat structure) ansible.builtin.fetch: src: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf dest: /tmp/configs/{{ inventory_hostname }}_nginx.conf flat: true ``` Collect logs from all servers ```yaml - name: Fetch application logs ansible.builtin.fetch: src: /var/log/myapp/app.log dest: ./collected-logs/ # Creates: ./collected-logs/server1/var/log/myapp/app.log # ./collected-logs/server2/var/log/myapp/app.log ``` Download and verify checksum ```yaml - name: Fetch binary with validation ansible.builtin.fetch: src: /opt/myapp/bin/myapp dest: ./downloads/ validate_checksum: true # Verify file integrity after download ``` Fetch only if file exists ```yaml - name: Check if log exists ansible.builtin.stat: path: /var/log/myapp/error.log register: error_log - n

About this tutorial

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

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