How to disable a user account 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 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. ## Playbook Let's jump into a real-life Ansible Playbook to disable a user. code - user_disable.yml ```yaml --- - name: user module Playbook 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 ```bash $ ansible-playbook -i Playbook/inventory disable\ user\ account/user.yml PLAY [user module Playbook] *************************************************************************** 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 ```bash $ ssh devops@demo.example.com $ 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::: ``` [code with ❤️ in GitHub](https://github