Ansible Set Environment Variables: lineinfile for /etc/environment & .bashrc — Video Tutorial

How to permanently set system-wide environment variables on remote Linux 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. Permanently Set System-Wide Environment Variables on Remote Linux - /etc/environment - /etc/profile.d directory There are principally two ways to configure System-Wide Environment Variables on Linux: - `/etc/environment` is a system-wide configuration file, which means it is used by all users. It is owned by root so you need admin user privilege or sudo to modify it. Specifically, this file stores the system-wide locale and path settings. - `/etc/profile` and `/etc/profile.d/*.sh` are the global initialization scripts. This file gets executed whenever a bash login shell is entered via console, terminal, ssh, or graphical user interface. The global scripts get executed before the user-specific scripts though, and the main `/etc/profile` executes all the `*.sh` scripts in `/etc/profile.d/` just before it exits. Each user could customize their `~/.profile`, the user's personal shell initialization scripts. Every user has one and can edit their file without affecting others. This is the equivalent to `/etc/profile` for each user. Links - [ansible.builtin.lineinfile](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/lineinfile_module.html) ## Playbook How to permanently set System-Wide Environment variables on Remote Linux with Ansible Playbook. code ```yaml --- - name: set environment Playbook hosts: all gather_facts: false become: true vars: os_environment: - key: EDITOR value: vi - key: MY_ENV_VARIABLE value: ansiblepilot tasks: - name: customize /etc/environment ansible.builtin.lineinfile: dest: "/etc/environment" state: present regexp: "^{{ item.key }}=" line: "{{ item.key }}={{ item.value }}" with_items: "{{ os_environment }}" ``` execution ```bash ansible-pilot $ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/demo/inventory ansible\ statements/set-environment.yml PLAY [set environment Playbook] *********************************************************************** TASK [customize /etc/environment] ***************************************************************** changed: [demo.example.com] => (item={'key': 'EDITOR', 'value': 'vi'}) changed: [demo.example.com] => (item={'key': 'MY_ENV_VARIABLE', 'value': 'ansiblepilot'}) PLAY RECAP **************************************************************************************** demo.example.com : ok=1 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0 ansible-pilot $ ``` idempotency ```bash ansible-pilot $ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/demo/inventory ansible\ statements/set-environment.yml PLAY [set environment Playbook] *********************************************************************** TASK [customize /etc/environment] ****