Updating ansible.cfg files

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1

Hi. We have the need to update a possibly existing /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg file during the installation of an Ansible collection. Instead of replacing the file, we’d like to just get the updates in that we need (a few settings in the [defaults] section), in order to be tolerant to existing files.

I looked at the ansible-config command, but it only lists/views/dumps the effective config, combining all of its sources.

Is there a command line tool or a Python library that can update ansible.cfg files?

2

I don’t think there is an official Ansible command or built-in tool that “patches” an existing ansible.cfg.

You should try using an external parser, such as ConfigUpdater.

example of how you can use ConfigUpdater to update the [defaults] section in your ansible.cfg while preserving comments and formatting:

from configupdater import ConfigUpdater

config_path = '/etc/ansible/ansible.cfg'

# Create an updater instance and read the file
updater = ConfigUpdater()
updater.read(config_path)

# Ensure the [defaults] section exists; create it if missing
if 'defaults' not in updater.sections():
    updater.add_section('defaults')

# Access the [defaults]
defaults = updater['defaults']

# Update specific settings; these will be added or overwritten
defaults['inventory'] = '/path/to/your/inventory'
defaults['host_key_checking'] = 'False'

# Optionally, add a comment to one of the settings
defaults['inventory'].comment = 'Updated inventory path'

# Write the updated configuration back to the file
with open(config_path, 'w') as config_file:
    updater.write(config_file)

Obviously, since it’s an external script, I advise you to thoroughly test it before making any changes to the real ansible.cfg file.

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3

You could use the community.general.ini_file module if you wanted to do it using Ansible?

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