Documentation

lineinfile - Ensure a particular line is in a file, or replace an existing line using a back-referenced regular expression.

Synopsis

This module will search a file for a line, and ensure that it is present or absent. This is primarily useful when you want to change a single line in a file only. See the replace module if you want to change multiple, similar lines; for other cases, see the copy or template modules.

Options

parameter required default choices comments
backrefs
 no no
  • yes
  • no
Used with state=present. If set, line can contain backreferences (both positional and named) that will get populated if the regexp matches. This flag changes the operation of the module slightly; insertbefore and insertafter will be ignored, and if the regexp doesn't match anywhere in the file, the file will be left unchanged. If the regexp does match, the last matching line will be replaced by the expanded line parameter.
backup
 no no
  • yes
  • no
Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly.
create
 no no
  • yes
  • no
Used with state=present. If specified, the file will be created if it does not already exist. By default it will fail if the file is missing.
dest
 yes
    The file to modify.

    aliases: name, destfile
    group
    		 no
      name of the group that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown
      insertafter
      		 no EOF
      • EOF
      • *regex*
      Used with state=present. If specified, the line will be inserted after the last match of specified regular expression. A special value is available; EOF for inserting the line at the end of the file. If specified regular expression has no matches, EOF will be used instead. May not be used with backrefs.
      insertbefore
      		 no
      • BOF
      • *regex*
      Used with state=present. If specified, the line will be inserted before the last match of specified regular expression. A value is available; BOF for inserting the line at the beginning of the file. If specified regular expression has no matches, the line will be inserted at the end of the file. May not be used with backrefs.
      line
      		 no
        Required for state=present. The line to insert/replace into the file. If backrefs is set, may contain backreferences that will get expanded with the regexp capture groups if the regexp matches.
        mode
        		 no
          mode the file or directory should be. For those used to /usr/bin/chmod remember that modes are actually octal numbers (like 0644). Leaving off the leading zero will likely have unexpected results. As of version 1.8, the mode may be specified as a symbolic mode (for example, u+rwx or u=rw,g=r,o=r).
          others
          		 no
            All arguments accepted by the file module also work here.
            owner
            		 no
              name of the user that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown
              regexp
              (added in 1.7)
              		 no
                The regular expression to look for in every line of the file. For state=present, the pattern to replace if found; only the last line found will be replaced. For state=absent, the pattern of the line to remove. Uses Python regular expressions; see http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html.
                selevel
                		 no s0
                  level part of the SELinux file context. This is the MLS/MCS attribute, sometimes known as the range. _default feature works as for seuser.
                  serole
                  		 no
                    role part of SELinux file context, _default feature works as for seuser.
                    setype
                    		 no
                      type part of SELinux file context, _default feature works as for seuser.
                      seuser
                      		 no
                        user part of SELinux file context. Will default to system policy, if applicable. If set to _default, it will use the user portion of the policy if available
                        state
                        		 no present
                        • present
                        • absent
                        Whether the line should be there or not.
                        validate
                        		 no None
                          The validation command to run before copying into place. The path to the file to validate is passed in via '%s' which must be present as in the example below. The command is passed securely so shell features like expansion and pipes won't work.

                          Examples

                          - lineinfile: dest=/etc/selinux/config regexp=^SELINUX= line=SELINUX=enforcing

- lineinfile: dest=/etc/sudoers state=absent regexp="^%wheel"

- lineinfile: dest=/etc/hosts regexp='^127\.0\.0\.1' line='127.0.0.1 localhost' owner=root group=root mode=0644

- lineinfile: dest=/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf regexp="^Listen " insertafter="^#Listen " line="Listen 8080"

- lineinfile: dest=/etc/services regexp="^# port for http" insertbefore="^www.*80/tcp" line="# port for http by default"

# Add a line to a file if it does not exist, without passing regexp
- lineinfile: dest=/tmp/testfile line="192.168.1.99 foo.lab.net foo"

# Fully quoted because of the ': ' on the line. See the Gotchas in the YAML docs.
- lineinfile: "dest=/etc/sudoers state=present regexp='^%wheel' line='%wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL'"

- lineinfile: dest=/opt/jboss-as/bin/standalone.conf regexp='^(.*)Xms(\d+)m(.*)$' line='\1Xms${xms}m\3' backrefs=yes

# Validate the sudoers file before saving
- lineinfile: dest=/etc/sudoers state=present regexp='^%ADMIN ALL\=' line='%ADMIN ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL' validate='visudo -cf %s'

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