Run a remote command from a template *file*

Get Help
, ,
1

I need to run a few lines of shell on a remote system, and I find YAML more than awkward to use for this and would prefer to put this into a foo.sh.j2 file instead.

Now I could do the dance:

  • stat to test if a remote directory exists
  • create a remote temporary path if said directory does not exist
  • run the template module with foo.sh.j2 into the remote temporary path if said directory does not exist
  • run sh path/foo.sh with the command module if said directory does not exist, creating said directory
  • remove the remote temporary path if said directory did not exist

This is quite the overhead for something that ideally does get executed only once.

What I am really looking for is something like:

ansible.builtin.shell:
  cmd_from_template: foo.sh.j2
  creates: /path/to/said/directory

The foo.sh.j2 file needs to be evaluated locally, as is normal for templates; this is not a request to do that remotely.

2

You can use the template lookup to build a string from a template using the template lookup:

- name: run shell command from template
  ansible.builtin.shell:
    cmd: '{{ lookup("template", "foo.sh.j2") }}'
    creates: /path/to/said/directory

Please keep in mind this could be dangerous if the template is from an untrusted source, that may be a moot point if it’s stored in the same way as the playbook but if sourced elsewhere this could lead to an injection attack.