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Ansible: How to Delete/ReCreate a File while running Ansible Playbook?

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Ansible - How to Delete Recreate a file?

Ansible no doubt the best Infrastructure Automation tool out there which is used by top fortune 500 companies world wide.

On Crunchify, we have published a wide verity of tutorials on Ansible. Kindly take a look at Ansible Archive for all detailed tutorials. Here are top 3 tutorials.

  1. How to copy File, Directory or Script from localhost to Remote host?
  2. How to Spawn Amazon EC2 VMs using Ansible?
  3. How to Execute Commands on remote Hosts and get command result (log) back?

In this tutorial we will go over 3 different tips which I uses day to day bases.

How to Delete and Re-create a file using Ansible?

Step-1

Make sure you have setup Ansible correctly on your Mac or Linux OS.

Step-2

Create file crunchify-delete-recreate-ansible.yml

---
- name: Delete and Re-Create crunchify.txt file from current directory.
  hosts: local
  connection: local
  gather_facts: True

  tasks:
    - name: delete file
      ignore_errors: yes
      file:
        state: absent
        path: crunchify.txt

    - name: Ansible create file if it doesn't exist example
      ignore_errors: yes
      file:
        path: "crunchify.txt"
        state: touch

Step-3

Open hosts file and put below content:

[local]
localhost ansible_connection=local ansible_python_interpreter=python

Step-4

How to Delete/ReCreate a File while running Ansible Playbook?

Run Ansible playbook.

ansible-playbook -vvv -i ./hosts crunchify-delete-recreate-ansible.yml

Here is a result:

WARNING: Executing a script that is loading libcrypto in an unsafe way. This will fail in a future version of macOS. Set the LIBRESSL_REDIRECT_STUB_ABORT=1 in the environment to force this into an error.
ansible-playbook 2.7.8
  config file = None
  configured module search path = [u'/Users/crunchify/.ansible/plugins/modules', u'/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/ansible
  executable location = /usr/local/bin/ansible-playbook
  python version = 2.7.16 (default, Jul 14 2019, 03:47:49) [GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 11.0.0 (clang-1100.0.32.4) (-macos10.15-objc-s
No config file found; using defaults
/Users/crunchify/Documents/ansible/hosts did not meet host_list requirements, check plugin documentation if this is unexpected
/Users/crunchify/Documents/ansible/hosts did not meet script requirements, check plugin documentation if this is unexpected
Parsed /Users/crunchify/Documents/ansible/hosts inventory source with ini plugin

PLAYBOOK: crunchify-delete-recreate-ansible.yml ****************************************************************************************************************
1 plays in crunchify-delete-recreate-ansible.yml

PLAY [Delete and Re-Create crunchify.txt file from current directory.] *****************************************************************************************

TASK [Gathering Facts] *****************************************************************************************************************************************
task path: /Users/crunchify/Documents/ansible/crunchify-delete-recreate-ansible.yml:2
<localhost> ESTABLISH LOCAL CONNECTION FOR USER: crunchify
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'echo ~crunchify && sleep 0'
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c '( umask 77 && mkdir -p "` echo /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010309.76-127517206399779 `" && echo ansible-tmp-1567010309.76-127517206399779="` echo /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010309.76-127517206399779 `" ) && sleep 0'
Using module file /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/ansible/modules/system/setup.py
<localhost> PUT /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-local-36562FsxMwP/tmp5SGRSa TO /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010309.76-127517206399779/AnsiballZ_setup.py
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'chmod u+x /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010309.76-127517206399779/ /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010309.76-127517206399779/AnsiballZ_setup.py && sleep 0'
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'python /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010309.76-127517206399779/AnsiballZ_setup.py && sleep 0'
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'rm -f -r /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010309.76-127517206399779/ > /dev/null 2>&1 && sleep 0'
ok: [localhost]
META: ran handlers

TASK [delete file] *********************************************************************************************************************************************
task path: /Users/crunchify/Documents/ansible/crunchify-delete-recreate-ansible.yml:8
<localhost> ESTABLISH LOCAL CONNECTION FOR USER: crunchify
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'echo ~crunchify && sleep 0'
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c '( umask 77 && mkdir -p "` echo /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.35-144146434104750 `" && echo ansible-tmp-1567010310.35-144146434104750="` echo /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.35-144146434104750 `" ) && sleep 0'
Using module file /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/ansible/modules/files/file.py
<localhost> PUT /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-local-36562FsxMwP/tmpvL0NpJ TO /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.35-144146434104750/AnsiballZ_file.py
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'chmod u+x /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.35-144146434104750/ /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.35-144146434104750/AnsiballZ_file.py && sleep 0'
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'python /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.35-144146434104750/AnsiballZ_file.py && sleep 0'
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'rm -f -r /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.35-144146434104750/ > /dev/null 2>&1 && sleep 0'
changed: [localhost] => {
    "changed": true, 
    "diff": {
        "after": {
            "path": "crunchify.txt", 
            "state": "absent"
        }, 
        "before": {
            "path": "crunchify.txt", 
            "state": "file"
        }
    }, 
    "invocation": {
        "module_args": {
            "_diff_peek": null, 
            "_original_basename": null, 
            "access_time": null, 
            "access_time_format": "%Y%m%d%H%M.%S", 
            "attributes": null, 
            "backup": null, 
            "content": null, 
            "delimiter": null, 
            "directory_mode": null, 
            "follow": true, 
            "force": false, 
            "group": null, 
            "mode": null, 
            "modification_time": null, 
            "modification_time_format": "%Y%m%d%H%M.%S", 
            "owner": null, 
            "path": "crunchify.txt", 
            "recurse": false, 
            "regexp": null, 
            "remote_src": null, 
            "selevel": null, 
            "serole": null, 
            "setype": null, 
            "seuser": null, 
            "src": null, 
            "state": "absent", 
            "unsafe_writes": null
        }
    }, 
    "path": "crunchify.txt", 
    "state": "absent"
}

TASK [Ansible create file if it doesn't exist example] *********************************************************************************************************
task path: /Users/crunchify/Documents/ansible/crunchify-delete-recreate-ansible.yml:14
<localhost> ESTABLISH LOCAL CONNECTION FOR USER: crunchify
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'echo ~crunchify && sleep 0'
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c '( umask 77 && mkdir -p "` echo /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.67-150889598387355 `" && echo ansible-tmp-1567010310.67-150889598387355="` echo /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.67-150889598387355 `" ) && sleep 0'
Using module file /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/ansible/modules/files/file.py
<localhost> PUT /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-local-36562FsxMwP/tmpim0wPm TO /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.67-150889598387355/AnsiballZ_file.py
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'chmod u+x /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.67-150889598387355/ /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.67-150889598387355/AnsiballZ_file.py && sleep 0'
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'python /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.67-150889598387355/AnsiballZ_file.py && sleep 0'
<localhost> EXEC /bin/sh -c 'rm -f -r /Users/crunchify/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1567010310.67-150889598387355/ > /dev/null 2>&1 && sleep 0'
changed: [localhost] => {
    "changed": true, 
    "dest": "crunchify.txt", 
    "diff": {
        "after": {
            "atime": 1567010310.795358, 
            "mtime": 1567010310.795358, 
            "path": "crunchify.txt", 
            "state": "touch"
        }, 
        "before": {
            "atime": 1567010310.795286, 
            "mtime": 1567010310.795286, 
            "path": "crunchify.txt", 
            "state": "absent"
        }
    }, 
    "gid": 20, 
    "group": "staff", 
    "invocation": {
        "module_args": {
            "_diff_peek": null, 
            "_original_basename": null, 
            "access_time": null, 
            "access_time_format": "%Y%m%d%H%M.%S", 
            "attributes": null, 
            "backup": null, 
            "content": null, 
            "delimiter": null, 
            "directory_mode": null, 
            "follow": true, 
            "force": false, 
            "group": null, 
            "mode": null, 
            "modification_time": null, 
            "modification_time_format": "%Y%m%d%H%M.%S", 
            "owner": null, 
            "path": "crunchify.txt", 
            "recurse": false, 
            "regexp": null, 
            "remote_src": null, 
            "selevel": null, 
            "serole": null, 
            "setype": null, 
            "seuser": null, 
            "src": null, 
            "state": "touch", 
            "unsafe_writes": null
        }
    }, 
    "mode": "0644", 
    "owner": "crunchify", 
    "size": 0, 
    "state": "file", 
    "uid": 502
}
META: ran handlers
META: ran handlers

PLAY RECAP *****************************************************************************************************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=3    changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=0

And that’s it. Above Ansible playbook will delete an existing file named crunchify.txt and will create a new one with empty content.

As usual, let us know for any query or any problem running above Ansible Playbook.

If you liked this article, then please share it on social media. Have a question or suggestion? Please leave a comment to start the discussion.

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About App

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