A couple of tasks in my playbook keep finding and modifying files in hidden directories--I do not want the hidden files to be altered.
ansible-core 2.13.7
- name: Find all script files
find:
recurse: yes
paths: /var/bbb
patterns:
- "*.sh"
- "*.py"
- "*.env"
register: script_files
- name: Make all scripts executable
file:
dest: "{{ item.path }}"
mode: "a+rx"
with_items: "{{ script_files.files }}"
Sample of output from second task:
ok: [localhost] => (item={'path': '/var/bbb/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections/community/docker/tests/unit/plugins/module_utils/test_util.py', 'mode': '0755', ...
I've gone through the docs and they say hidden files are left alone by default in the current and former versions. I suspect it may be the patterns, but again the docs say the pattern is compared to the file base name and excludes the directory.
Regarding your observation
Ansible find module collecting files in hidden directories
that's right and the expected behavior.
... they say hidden files are left alone by default in the current and former versions.
I interpret the documentation about Parameter: hidden that it applies to files only and not to directories.
A minimal test setup
mdkir .hidden
touch .hidden/script.sh
touch .hidden/.script.sh
with an example playbook
---
- hosts: localhost
become: false
gather_facts: false
tasks:
- name: Find all script files
find:
hidden: false
recurse: true
paths: "/home/{{ ansible_user }}/"
patterns:
- "*script.sh"
register: result
- name: Show result
debug:
msg: "{{ result.files }}"
will result into an output of
...
path: /home/user/.hidden/script.sh
...
or if hidden: true
...
path: /home/user/.hidden/script.sh
...
path: /home/user/.hidden/.script.sh
...
Similar Q&A
Using Ansible find module to get hidden folders
To summarize, your question seems to be about
How to exclude hidden directories from Ansible find module recursive search?
Since with the parameter hidden: false and file_type: any still the /.hidden/script.sh is found, the excludes parameter operates on basenames of files, I recommend to adjust the search path.
Given the useful explanation in the previous answer and the complexity of the search path solution in my use case, I looked beyond the parameters of find and developed a separate task that removes results that contain hidden directories:
- name: filter hidden directories
set_fact:
filtered_list: "{{result.files | map(attribute='path') | reject('search', '/\\.')}}"
Be aware that this will remove all paths which contain a hidden directory: it should not be used when the find task is performed on paths that contain a hidden directory.
Related
I would like to use ansible to delete older files. I have a data log folder, inside this folder I have multiple directories:
/data/log/folder1/
/data/log/folder2/
....
I tried to use this ansible playbook :
---
- hosts: all
tasks:
- name: find all files that are older than 10 days
find:
paths: /data/log/*/
age: 10d
recursive: yes
register: filesOlderThan10
- name: remove older than 10
file:
path: "{{ item.path }}"
state: absent
with_items: "{{ (filesOlderThan10.files }}"
When I launch the playbook nothing is deleted, I'm not sure that I could use this syntax /data/log/*/
I am therefore looking for suggestions to improve this code
As of now I've found three or four errors in the playbook
Use become or make sure its set in config/inventory if you need to remove the files which you do not have permission.
paths: Should be fully qualified path and no wild cards accepted in the path I believe
It should be paths: /data/log
'recursive' is not correct option with find module. It should be 'recurse'
There is an unneeded '(' in the last line.
The below code should work
---
- hosts: all
tasks:
- name: find all files that are older than 10 days
find:
paths: /data/log
age: 10d
recurse: yes
register: filesOlderThan10
- name: remove older than 10
file:
path: "{{ item.path }}"
state: absent
with_items: "{{ filesOlderThan10.files }}"
I've been previously using a cronjob with find and decided to move to AWX and after checking here and other articles, I've come up with the following. Tested and working as we speak.
First task registers all files older than 3 days as being matched_files_dirs.
Second task removes them.
Does the job but is slower than just running cron on linux.
---
- name: Cleanup
hosts: linux
gather_facts: false
tasks:
- name: Collect files
shell: find /opt/buildagent/system*/target_directory -type f -mtime +3
register: matched_files_dirs
- name: Remove files
become_user: root
file:
path: "{{ item }}"
state: absent
with_items: "{{ matched_files_dirs.stdout_lines }}"
How to delete the oldest directory with ansible.
suppose I have the following tree structure
Parent Directory
-Dir2020-05-20
-Dir2020-05-21
-Dir2020-05-22
-Dir2020-05-23
now every time an ansible playbook is run, it should delete the oldest directory, For e.g it should delete Dir2020-05-20 in its first run if we consider its creation date to be 2020-05-20.
age attribute of file module does not seen helpful as i have to run this playbook very randomly and i want to keep limited no. of these directories.
Just assign dirpath to the path of your "Parent Directory" where all these directories are present
---
- hosts: localhost
vars:
dir_path: "/home/harshit/ansible/test/" ##parent directory path, make sure it ends with a slash
tasks:
- name: find oldest directory
shell:
cmd: "ls `ls -tdr | head -n 1 `"
chdir: "{{dir_path}}"
register: dir_name_to_delete
- name: "delete oldest directory: {{dir_path}}{{dir_name_to_delete.stdout}}"
file:
state: absent
path: "{{dir_path}}{{dir_name_to_delete.stdout}}"
Considering a recommended practice is not to use shell or command modules wherever possible I suggest a pure ansible solution for this case:
- name: Get directory list
find:
paths: "{{ target_directory }}"
file_type: directory
register: found_dirs
- name: Get the oldest dir
set_fact:
oldest_dir: "{{ found_dirs.files | sort(attribute='mtime') | first }}"
- name: Delete oldest dir
file:
state: absent
path: "{{ oldest_dir.path }}"
when:
- found_dirs.files | count > 3
There are two ways to know how many files were found with find module - either using its return value matched like this when: found_dirs.matched > 3 or using count filter. I prefer the latter method because I just use this filter in a lot of other cases so this is just a habit.
For your reference, ansible has a whole bunch of useful filters (e.g. I used count and sort here, but there are dozens of them). One does not need to remember those filter names, of course, just keep in mind they exist and might be useful in many cases.
How to register a variable when using loop with stat module?
I am working on a project where I wish to run comparisons against the known value of a collection of files (checksum), which I will then take action if a change is detected (EG: notify someone, have not written this part yet).
If this were purely a CLI matter, I would have this sorted with some easy SH scripting.
That said, I have Ansible (2.7.5) available within my ENV and am keen to use it!
In reading the vendor documents, using the stat module felt the "Ansible way" to go on this one.
Currently just *NIX servers (Linux, Solaris, and possibly AIX) are in scope, but eventually this might also apply to Windows, where I expect I would use win_stat instead with suitable parameters.
At present I plan to dump the results of the scan to a file (EG: CSV), which I would then iterate / match against, for the purposes of a comparison (to detect if a file has been somehow changed).
This is another part I have not written yet (the read a file and compare portions), but expect to hit those once I get this present matter sorted.
My current challenge, is that I can get "one-off" stat checks to work fine.
However, I expect to be targeting a whole directory worth of files, and thus want to presumably:
"discover" the contents of the target directory, and retain this in memory
iterate (loop) through the list in memory
performing a stat check upon each file
retaining the checksum of each file
building some sort of dict or list?
write the collective results (or one line at a time) out to a log file of sorts (CSV.log: file_path,file_checksum)
I would welcome your feedback on what I might be missing (aside from some hair at this point)?
I have tried a few different approaches to looping within the playbook (loop, with_items, etc.), however the challenge remains the same.
The stat loop runs fine, but the trailing register statement fails to commit the output to memory (resulting in a variety of "undefined variable" errors).
Am I somehow missing something in my loop definition?
Looking at the vendor docs on "Using register with a loop", it would appear I am doing this correctly (in my view anyway).
Simple "target files" I am checking against within a directory.
/tmp/app/targets/file1.txt
Some text.
/tmp/app/targets/file2.cfg
cluster=0
cluster_id=app_pool_00
/tmp/app/targets/file3.sh
#!/bin/sh
printf "Hello world\n"
exit 0
My prototyping playbook as it exists currently.
---
- name: check file integrity
hosts: localhost
become: no
vars:
TARGET: /tmp/app/targets
LOG: /tmp/app/archive/scan_results.log
tasks:
- name: discover target files
find:
paths: "{{ TARGET }}"
recurse: yes
file_type: file
register: TARGET_FILES
- name: scan target
stat:
path: "{{ item.path }}"
get_checksum: yes
loop: "{{ TARGET_FILES.files }}"
register: TARGET_RESULTS
- name: DEBUG
debug:
var: "{{ TARGET_RESULTS }}"
- name: write findings to log
copy:
content: "{{ TARGET_RESULTS.stat.path }},{{ TARGET_RESULTS.stat.checksum }}"
dest: "{{ LOG }}"
...
My "one-off" playbook that worked.
---
- name: check file integrity
hosts: localhost
become: no
vars:
TARGET: /tmp/app/targets/file1.txt
LOG: /tmp/app/archive/scan_results.log
tasks:
- name: scan target
stat:
path: '{{ TARGET }}'
checksum_algorithm: sha1
follow: no
get_attributes: yes
get_checksum: yes
get_md5: no
get_mime: yes
register: result
- name: write findings to log
copy:
content: "{{ result.stat.path }},{{ result.stat.checksum }}"
dest: "{{ LOG }}"
...
The output was not exciting, but useful.
Would expect to build this up with multi-line output (one line per file stat checked) if I could figure out how to loop / register loop output correctly.
/tmp/app/archive/scan_results.log
/tmp/app/targets/file1.txt,8d06cea05d408d70c59b1dbc5df3bda374d869a4
You can use the set_fact module to register a variable like you want.
I don't use it in my test for you, it maybe useless in your case :
---
- name: check file integrity
hosts: localhost
vars:
TARGET: /tmp/app/targets
LOG: /tmp/app/archive/scan_results.log
tasks:
- name: 'discover target files'
find:
paths: "{{ TARGET }}"
recurse: yes
file_type: file
register: TARGET_FILES
- debug:
var: TARGET_FILES
- name: 'scan target'
stat:
path: "{{ item.path }}"
get_checksum: yes
loop: "{{ TARGET_FILES.files }}"
register: TARGET_RESULTS
- debug:
var: TARGET_RESULTS
- name: 'write findings to log'
lineinfile:
line: "{{ item.stat.path }},{{ item.stat.checksum }}"
path: "{{ LOG }}"
create: yes
loop: '{{ TARGET_RESULTS.results }}'
result:
# cat /tmp/app/archive/scan_results.log
/tmp/app/targets/file3.sh,bb4b0ffe4b5d26551785b250c38592b6f482cab4
/tmp/app/targets/file1.txt,8d06cea05d408d70c59b1dbc5df3bda374d869a4
/tmp/app/targets/file2.cfg,fb23292e06f91a0e0345f819fdee34fac8a53e59
Best Regards
In my Ansible Playbook I'd like to have a task that removes old files and folders from the application's directory. The twist to this otherwise simple task is that a few files or folders need to remain. Imagine something like this:
/opt/application
- /config
- *.properties
- special.yml
- /logs
- /bin
- /var
- /data
- /templates
Let's assume I'd like to keep /logs completely, /var/data and from /config I want to keep special.yml.
(I cannot provide exact code at the moment because I left work frustrated by this and, after cooling down, I am now writing up this question at home)
My idea was to have two lists of exclusions, one holding the folders and one the file. Then I use the find module to first get the folders in the application's directory into a variable and the same for the remaining files into another variable. Afterwards I wanted to remove every folder and file that are not in the lists of exclusions using the file module.
(Pseudo-YML because I'm not yet fluent enough in Ansible that I can whip up a properly structured example; it should be close enough though)
file:
path: "{{ item.path }}"
state: absent
with_items: "{{ found_files_list.files }}"
when: well, that is the big question
What I can't figure out is how to properly construct the when clause. Is it even possible like this?
I don't believe there is a when clause with the file module.
But you can probably achieve what you need as follows:
- name: Find /opt/application all directories, exclude logs, data, and config
find:
paths: /opt/application
excludes: 'logs,data,config'
register: files_to_delete
- name: Ansible remove file glob
file:
path: "{{ item.path }}"
state: absent
with_items: "{{ files_to_delete.files }}"
I hope this is what you need.
First use the find module like you said to get a total list of all files and directories. Register to a variable like all_objects.
- name: Get list of all files recursively
find:
path: /opt/application/
recurse: yes
register: all_objects
Then manually make a list of things you want to keep.
vars:
keep_these:
- /logs
- /var/data
- /config/special.yml
Then this task should delete everything except things in your list:
- name: Delete all files and directories except exclusions
file:
path: "{{ item.path }}"
state: absent
recurse: true
with_items: "{{ all_objects.files }}"
when: item.path not in keep_these
I think this general strategy should work... only thing I'm not sure about is the exact nesting heiararchy of the registered variable from the find module. You might have to play around with the debug module to get it exactly right.
I have an ansible playbook that I need to add a task to. Essentially I have a directory that on each deploy adds another subdirectory. When there are more than 3 subdirectories I want to delete all of the older directories past the 3 most recent directories. I am having a very hard time trying to write a play for it.
I first try to get all the subdirectories
- name: Get all install artifacts
find:
paths: "{{ home_path }}/install/"
file_type: directory
recurse: no
register: install_artifacts
But after this I am trying to check if there are more than 3 items, and if so get the 3rd items modified date, and delete everything with a modified date earlier than this.
- block:
- name: Determine old directories
set_fact:
old_dirs: "{{ (install_artifacts.files|sort(attribute='mtime', reverse=True))[3:] }}"
- name: Remove old directories
file:
path: "{{ item.path }}"
state: absent
with_items: "{{ old_dirs }}"
when: install_artifacts.matched > 3
First of all, install_artifacts.files|sort(attribute='mtime', reverse=True) will sort the list of dicts by mtime in descending order. [3:] means removing the first 3 items from the list, which are the 3 most recent directories. So old_dirs now contains all the old directories.