# Ansible n00b needs help to transfer dockercompose.yml to Playbook

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-n00b-needs-help-to-transfer-dockercompose-yml-to-playbook/45231>\
**Category:** Get Help\
**Tags:** docker, ubuntu\
**Created:** [January 31, 2026, 1:46pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-n00b-needs-help-to-transfer-dockercompose-yml-to-playbook/45231 "2026-01-31T13:46:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![frakk](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/frakk/32/10254_2.png) [@frakk](https://forum.ansible.com/u/frakk)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2026, 1:46pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-n00b-needs-help-to-transfer-dockercompose-yml-to-playbook/45231/1 "2026-01-31T13:46:04Z")

</div>

Hello to everybody!

I’m failry new to Ansible. Reading a lot (I mean, a lot) and this is just a hobby project, so I’m not an expert by any means.

What I would like to acomplish is to do an Ansible Playbook automation for a few docker images I use. I have the docker compose.yml that is working fine. Now I’m trying to “translate” this to Ansible. I start to understand how community.docker workds, but lot of options and I’m confused.

**GOAL:** add variables to a user.yml file (like usernames, passwords, domains, etc) and based on that configure a linux (Ubuntu Server 24) with Ansible.

I think the best way for this would be if any of you would be so kind to help me translate this docker-compose.yml to proper Ansible Palybook. If I have this, I’m convinced I’ll be able to interpret how do to many more.

I added some comments to the compose file.  
The volumes on host are now in /opt/name This doesn’t need to be a user import value.

I have hard time to figure out how to pass ENV variables with Community.Docker  
And there is the

> network\_mode: “service:vpn-pia”

part as well to route the container traffic over the VPN docker image. Since this is now in a same compose, service is used. If not in the same compose, then

> network\_mode: “container:vpn-pia”

should be used, and maybe even depends\_on

Here is the content of the docker-compose.yml:

```auto
services:
  vpn-pia:
    image: thrnz/docker-wireguard-pia
    container_name: vpn-pia:latest
    ports:
       - 3000:3000 # stremhu web UI
    volumes:
       - /opt/vpn-pia:/pia
       - /opt/vpn-pia:/pia-shared
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
    environment:
      - TZ=Europe/Budapest
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - LOC=hungary
      - USER=abc # THIS SHOULD BE IMPORTED FROM A FILE, MANUALLY ADDED BEFORE PLAYBOOK STARTS
      - PASS=abc # THIS SHOULD BE IMPORTED FROM A FILE, MANUALLY ADDED BEFORE PLAYBOOK STARTS
      - LOCAL_NETWORK=192.168.1.0/24,172.22.0.0/16,10.8.0.0/24 # I have a script to set these, but that will be next step.
      - KEEPALIVE=25
      - VPNDNS=1.1.1.1,1.0.0.1
      - PORT_FORWARDING=1
      - PORT_FILE=/pia-shared/port.dat
      - PORT_FILE_CLEANUP=0
      - PORT_PERSIST=1
      - FIREWALL=1
      - ACTIVE_HEALTHCHECKS=1
      - HEALTHCHECK_PING_TARGET=www.google.com,1.1.1.1
      - HEALTHCHECK_PING_TIMEOUT=5
      - RECONNECT=1
      - MONITOR_INTERVAL=60
      - MONITOR_RETRIES=3
    sysctls:
      - net.ipv4.conf.all.src_valid_mark=1
      - net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6=1
      - net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1
      - net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6=1

  stremhu-source:
    image: s4pp1/stremhu-source:latest  
    container_name: stremhu
    environment:
      - TORRENT_PORT=6881
      - TZ=Europe/Budapest
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
    volumes:
       - /opt/stremhu/data/database:/app/data/database
       - /opt/stremhu/data/torrents:/app/data/torrents
       - /mnt/hdd/stremhu/data/downloads:/app/data/downloads
    restart: unless-stopped
    network_mode: "service:vpn-pia"
	
networks:
  caddy_net:
    external: true

```

Thank you so much in advance!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chris](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/chris/32/293_2.png) [@chris](https://forum.ansible.com/u/chris)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2026, 3:19pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/ansible-n00b-needs-help-to-transfer-dockercompose-yml-to-playbook/45231/2 "2026-01-31T15:19:29Z")

</div>

I’d probably set a variable for all the `docker-compose.yml` files that should be present, for example:

```yaml
docker_compose_files:
  - path: /opt/wherever/docker-compose.yml
    owner: root
    group: root
    mode: "0644"
    contents:
      services:
        vpn-pia:

```

Then generate them using a `docker-compose.yml.j2` template something like this:

```jinja2
---
{{ docker_compose_file.contents | to_nice_yaml(indent=4, width=1200) }}
...

```

And the [template module](https://docs.ansible.com/projects/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/template_module.html) something like this:

```yaml
- name: Template Docker Compose files
  ansible.builtin.template:
    src: docker-compose.yml.j2
    dest: "{{ docker_compose_file.path }}"
    owner: "{{ docker_compose_file.owner }}"
    group: "{{ docker_compose_file.group }}"
    mode: "{{ docker_compose_file.mode }}"
    backup: true
  loop: "{{ docker_compose_files }}"
  loop_control:
    loop_var: docker_compose_file
    label: "{{ docker_compose_file | ansible.builtin.basename }}"

```

And then I’d probably use the [community.docker.docker\_compose\_v2 module](https://docs.ansible.com/projects/ansible/latest/collections/community/docker/docker_compose_v2_module.html) to pull images and start them…

Hope this helps!