Making 100% sure content of directory will not get deleted

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I’m writing a play to create a few symlinks in my app directory that link to some shared directories on a NFS mount.

Because of the way the application is, in the location where I’m trying to place the symlink, there may or may not be a directory that already exists. I want to make sure that directory is deleted first, then a symlink created in it’s place to point to the corresponding directory on the NFS mount.

I have a play which does this fine but I wanted some input to make sure 100% that if the symlink is already created, then deleting the directory with NEVER delete any contents from the NFS mount.

`

set list of directories as variable

  • name: Set dirs variable
    set_fact:
    dirs_to_symlink:
  • { src: /nfs/audio, dest: /var/web/site/audio}
  • { src: /nfs/downloads, dest: /var/web/site/downloads}
  • { src: /nfs/images, dest: /var/web/site/images}

get stat information about the directories

  • name: check if directories exist
    stat: path={{ item.dest }}
    register: dir_check
    with_items: “{{ dirs_to_symlink }}”

  • debug: msg=“exists={{ item.stat.exists }}, islnk={{ item.stat.islnk }}, isdir={{ item.stat.isdir }}”
    with_items: “{{ dir_check.results }}”

go through the stats and do some checks, if directories exist delete them, otherwise leave it alone

  • name: remove directories ready for sym links
    file: path={{ item.item.dest }} state=absent
    when:
  • item.stat.exists == true
  • item.stat.islnk == false
  • item.stat.isdir == true
    with_items: “{{ dir_check.results }}”

go ahead and create symlinks to directories on the nfs mount

  • name: create sym links for assets
    file: src={{ item.src }} dest={{ item.dest }} state=link force=yes
    with_items: “{{ dirs_to_symlink }}”
    `

This works fine, it doesn’t delete the contents of the directory on the NFS mount if the symlink does exist. Great!

But if checking the following enough?

`

  • item.stat.exists == true
  • item.stat.islnk == false
  • item.stat.isdir == true
    `

Are there any other things I can check for to make sure that…

file: path={{ item.item.dest }} state=absent

Will not accidentally on purpose delete a directory on the NFS mount…which would be very very bad!

Any advise or extra checks that come to mind would be awesome.