Change file permission - Ansible module file

How to change file or directory permission with Ansible?

I’m going to show you a live Playbook and some simple Ansible code. I’m Luca Berton and welcome to today’s episode of Ansible Pilot.

Ansible change file/directory permission

Today we’re talking about the Ansible module file. The full name is ansible.builtin.file, 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 works in a different variety of operating systems. It manages files and file properties. For Windows targets, use the ansible.windows.win_file module instead.

Main Parameters

• path string (dest, name) - file path
• owner string - user
• group string - group
• mode raw - Ex: ‘0644’ or ‘u=rw,g=r,o=r’
• state string - file/absent/directory/hard/link/touch
• setype/seuser/selevel - SELinux

This module has some parameters to perform any tasks. The only required is “path”, where you specify the filesystem path of the file you’re going to edit. The parameter “owner” sets the user that should own the file/directory. The parameter “group” sets the group that should own the file/directory. The parameter “mode” sets the permissions in the UNIX way of the file/directory. The state defines the type of object we are modifying, the default is “file” but we could handle also directories, hardlink, symlink, or only update the access time with the “touch” option. Let me also highlight that we could also specify the SELinux properties.

Playbook

Let’s jump in a real-life playbook to change file permission with Ansible.

code

• file.yml

---
- name: file module demo
  hosts: all
  vars:
    myfile: "/home/devops/test.txt"
  become: false
  tasks:
    - name: check permission
      ansible.builtin.file:
        path: "{{ myfile }}"
        owner: "devops"
        group: "users"
        mode: '0777'

code with ❤️ in GitHub

Conclusion

Now you know how to change file or directory permission with Ansible. Subscribe to the YouTube channel, Medium, and Website, X (formerly Twitter) to not miss the next episode of the Ansible Pilot.

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