Put a file into users home directory

Archives Ansible Project
1

I’ve got a very silly question that I haven’t been able to find a simple solution to:

I want to copy a config file into users’ home directories but I don’t know their home directories on the controller (and they may vary from host to host). What’s the best way to look up a user’s home directory on the host? I know that I could capture the output from a shell command, but this feels hacky. I’d prefer a solution that doesn’t get flagged as “changed” every time.

Thanks,
Oscar.

2

You can just use “~/” on the path name for the “dest” file, the homedir will expand on the remote side as you expect.

3

Ah, thanks for the quick response.

4

​Be aware that this is the home directory or the user you are logging on to
the remote host with.​
If you need to copy to other users home directory, knowing their usernames,
you can use "~username/".
You probably will need root permissions to do that, and don't orget to set
the file's permissions to the target user.

Serge

5

Hi :

I am a newbie . Would the user subtitution from vars file also i.e ~{{user}}/ .
I guess I’ll find out and report back .

Thanks anyways .