lineinfile - Manage lines in text files

Synopsis
Parameters
Notes
Examples
Status
- Support
- Author

Synopsis

This module ensures a particular line is in a file, or replace an existing line using a back-referenced regular expression.
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 or check blockinfile if you want to insert/update/remove a block of lines in a file. For other cases, see the copy or template modules.

Parameters

Parameter	Choices/Defaults	Comments
attributes (added in 2.3)	Default: None	Attributes the file or directory should have. To get supported flags look at the man page for chattr on the target system. This string should contain the attributes in the same order as the one displayed by lsattr. aliases: attr
backrefs	Choices: no ← yes	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	Choices: no ← yes	Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly.
create	Choices: no ← yes	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.
firstmatch (added in 2.5)	Choices: no ← yes	Used with `insertafter` or `insertbefore`. If set, `insertafter` and `inserbefore` find a first line has regular expression matches.
group	Default: None	Name of the group that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
insertafter	Choices: EOF ← regex	Used with `state=present`. If specified, the line will be inserted after the last match of specified regular expression. If the first match is required, use(firstmatch=yes). 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	Choices: BOF regex	Used with `state=present`. If specified, the line will be inserted before the last match of specified regular expression. If the first match is required, use(firstmatch=yes). 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		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	Default: None	Mode the file or directory should be. For those used to /usr/bin/chmod remember that modes are actually octal numbers (like `0644` or `01777`). 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		All arguments accepted by the file module also work here.
owner	Default: None	Name of the user that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
path required		The file to modify. Before 2.3 this option was only usable as dest, destfile and name. aliases: dest, destfile, name
regexp (added in 1.7)		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(s) to remove. Uses Python regular expressions. See http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html.
selevel	Default: 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	Default: None	Role part of SELinux file context, `_default` feature works as for seuser.
setype	Default: None	Type part of SELinux file context, `_default` feature works as for seuser.
seuser	Default: None	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	Choices: absent present ←	Whether the line should be there or not.
unsafe_writes (added in 2.2)	Choices: no ← yes	Normally this module uses atomic operations to prevent data corruption or inconsistent reads from the target files, sometimes systems are configured or just broken in ways that prevent this. One example are docker mounted files, they cannot be updated atomically and can only be done in an unsafe manner. This boolean option allows ansible to fall back to unsafe methods of updating files for those cases in which you do not have any other choice. Be aware that this is subject to race conditions and can lead to data corruption.
validate	Default: 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.

Notes

Note

As of Ansible 2.3, the dest option has been changed to path as default, but dest still works as well.

Examples

# Before 2.3, option 'dest', 'destfile' or 'name' was used instead of 'path'
- lineinfile:
    path: /etc/selinux/config
    regexp: '^SELINUX='
    line: 'SELINUX=enforcing'

- lineinfile:
    path: /etc/sudoers
    state: absent
    regexp: '^%wheel'

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

- lineinfile:
    path: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
    regexp: '^Listen '
    insertafter: '^#Listen '
    line: 'Listen 8080'

- lineinfile:
    path: /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:
    path: /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:
    path: /etc/sudoers
    state: present
    regexp: '^%wheel\s'
    line: '%wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL'

# Yaml requires escaping backslashes in double quotes but not in single quotes
- lineinfile:
    path: /opt/jboss-as/bin/standalone.conf
    regexp: '^(.*)Xms(\\d+)m(.*)$'
    line: '\1Xms${xms}m\3'
    backrefs: yes

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

Status

This module is flagged as preview which means that it is not guaranteed to have a backwards compatible interface.

Support

For more information about Red Hat’s support of this module, please refer to this Knowledge Base article

Author

Daniel Hokka Zakrissoni (@dhozac)
Ahti Kitsik (@ahtik)

Hint

If you notice any issues in this documentation you can edit this document to improve it.

© 2012–2018 Michael DeHaan
© 2018–2019 Red Hat, Inc.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.5/modules/lineinfile_module.html