replace string in file created by root on remote server

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1

Hi!

What I’m trying to do is very “complicated” task:

  1. create a file on the remote server as root (in /root)
  2. replace a string in the file

I just can’t seem to achieve this without resorting to executing shell commands directly. (Any more than I already am, that is.)

Version a)

  • name: create the file as root
    shell: ‘echo “Test_string” > /root/test.txt’
    remote_user: root

  • name: replace ‘’ with ‘-’ in the file
    replace:
    path: “/root/test.txt”
    regexp: '    ’
    replace: ‘-’
    backup: no

==> it fails, because the replace task doesn’t accept either remote_user or sudo_user as a parameter, so it can only be run as the user running the playbook, and that user can’t modify a file created by root

Version b)

  • name: create release information file for all awwphp applications
    shell: ‘echo “Test_string” > /tmp/test.txt’

no remote_user!

  • name: replace ‘’ with ‘-’ in the file
    replace:
    path: “/tmp/test.txt”
    regexp: '    ’
    replace: ‘-’
    backup: no

  • name: copy test.txt into /root
    copy:
    src: “/tmp/test.txt”
    dest: “/root/test.txt”
    remote_src: yes

==> this fails here, because this task doesn’t accept remote_user/sudo_user either, and the regular user running the playbook doesn’t have rights to write into /root

How do you do that with Ansible?

2

remote_user and become_user(sudo_user is depricated) is a directive for the task, not the module so you indentation is probably wrong.
They must be on the same level as replace.

3

Hi Kai,

indeed, that seemed to be the problem!

Thank you very much!