ansible.builtin.lineinfile module – Manage lines in text files

ansible.builtin.lineinfile module – Manage lines in text files

https://docs.ansible.com/projects/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/lineinfile_module.html

This module is part of ansible-core and included in all Ansible installations. In most cases, you can use the short module name lineinfile even without specifying the collections keyword. However, we recommend you use the Fully Qualified Collection Name (FQCN) ansible.builtin.lineinfile for easy linking to the module documentation and to avoid conflicting with other collections that may have the same module name.

Synopsis

Parameters

Attributes

Notes

See Also

Examples

Synopsis This module ensures a particular line is in a file, or replace an existing line using a back-referenced regular expression.

This is primarily useful when you want to change a single line in a file only.

See the ansible.builtin.replace module if you want to change multiple, similar lines or check ansible.builtin.blockinfile if you want to insert/update/remove a block of lines in a file. For other cases, see the ansible.builtin.copy or ansible.builtin.template modules.

Parameters Parameter

Comments

attributes aliases: attr

string

The attributes the resulting filesystem object should have.

To get supported flags look at the man page for chattr on the target system.

This string should contain the attributes in the same order as the one displayed by lsattr.

The = operator is assumed as default, otherwise + or - operators need to be included in the string.

backrefs boolean

Used with state=present.

If set, line can contain backreferences (both positional and named) that will get populated if the regexp matches.

This parameter changes the operation of the module slightly; insertbefore and insertafter will be ignored, and if the regexp does not match anywhere in the file, the file will be left unchanged.

If the regexp does match, the last matching line will be replaced by the expanded line parameter.

Mutually exclusive with search_string.

Choices:

false ← (default)

true

backup boolean

Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly.

Choices:

false ← (default)

true

create boolean

Used with state=present.

If specified, the file will be created if it does not already exist.

By default it will fail if the file is missing.

Choices:

false ← (default)

true

encoding string

added in ansible-core 2.20

The character set in which the target file is encoded.

For a list of available built-in encodings, see https://docs.python.org/3/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings

Default: “utf-8”

firstmatch boolean

Used with insertafter or insertbefore.

If set, insertafter and insertbefore will work with the first line that matches the given regular expression.

Choices:

false ← (default)

true

group string

Name of the group that should own the filesystem object, as would be fed to chown.

When left unspecified, it uses the current group of the current user unless you are root, in which case it can preserve the previous ownership.

insertafter string

Used with state=present.

If specified, the line will be inserted after the last match of specified regular expression.

If the first match is required, use(firstmatch=yes).

A special value is available; EOF for inserting the line at the end of the file.

If specified regular expression has no matches or no value is passed, EOF will be used instead.

If insertbefore is set, default value EOF will be ignored.

If regular expressions are passed to both regexp and insertafter, insertafter is only honored if no match for regexp is found.

May not be used with backrefs or insertbefore.

insertbefore string

Used with state=present.

If specified, the line will be inserted before the last match of specified regular expression.

If the first match is required, use firstmatch=yes.

A value is available; BOF for inserting the line at the beginning of the file.

If specified regular expression has no matches, the line will be inserted at the end of the file.

If regular expressions are passed to both regexp and insertbefore, insertbefore is only honored if no match for regexp is found.

May not be used with backrefs or insertafter.

line aliases: value

string

The line to insert/replace into the file.

Required for state=present.

If backrefs is set, may contain backreferences that will get expanded with the regexp capture groups if the regexp matches.

mode any

The permissions the resulting filesystem object should have.

For those used to /usr/bin/chmod remember that modes are actually octal numbers. You must give Ansible enough information to parse them correctly. For consistent results, quote octal numbers (for example, ‘644’ or ‘1777’) so Ansible receives a string and can do its own conversion from string into number. Adding a leading zero (for example, 0755) works sometimes, but can fail in loops and some other circumstances.

Giving Ansible a number without following either of these rules will end up with a decimal number which will have unexpected results.

As of Ansible 1.8, the mode may be specified as a symbolic mode (for example, u+rwx or u=rw,g=r,o=r).

If mode is not specified and the destination filesystem object does not exist, the default umask on the system will be used when setting the mode for the newly created filesystem object.

If mode is not specified and the destination filesystem object does exist, the mode of the existing filesystem object will be used.

Specifying mode is the best way to ensure filesystem objects are created with the correct permissions. See CVE-2020-1736 for further details.

owner string

Name of the user that should own the filesystem object, as would be fed to chown.

When left unspecified, it uses the current user unless you are root, in which case it can preserve the previous ownership.

Specifying a numeric username will be assumed to be a user ID and not a username. Avoid numeric usernames to avoid this confusion.

path aliases: dest, destfile, name

path / required

The file to modify.

Before Ansible 2.3 this option was only usable as dest, destfile and name.

regexp aliases: regex

string

The regular expression to look for in every line of the file.

For state=present, the pattern to replace if found. Only the last line found will be replaced.

For state=absent, the pattern of the line(s) to remove.

If the regular expression is not matched, the line will be added to the file in keeping with insertbefore or insertafter settings.

When modifying a line the regexp should typically match both the initial state of the line as well as its state after replacement by line to ensure idempotence.

Uses Python regular expressions. See https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html.

search_string string

added in ansible-core 2.11

The literal string to look for in every line of the file. This does not have to match the entire line.

For state=present, the line to replace if the string is found in the file. Only the last line found will be replaced.

For state=absent, the line(s) to remove if the string is in the line.

If the literal expression is not matched, the line will be added to the file in keeping with insertbefore or insertafter settings.

Mutually exclusive with backrefs and regexp.

selevel string

The level part of the SELinux filesystem object context.

This is the MLS/MCS attribute, sometimes known as the range.

When set to _default, it will use the level portion of the policy if available.

serole string

The role part of the SELinux filesystem object context.

When set to _default, it will use the role portion of the policy if available.

setype string

The type part of the SELinux filesystem object context.

When set to _default, it will use the type portion of the policy if available.

seuser string

The user part of the SELinux filesystem object context.

By default it uses the system policy, where applicable.

When set to _default, it will use the user portion of the policy if available.

state string

Whether the line should be there or not.

Choices:

“absent”

“present” ← (default)

unsafe_writes boolean

Influence when to use atomic operation to prevent data corruption or inconsistent reads from the target filesystem object.

By default this module uses atomic operations to prevent data corruption or inconsistent reads from the target filesystem objects, but sometimes systems are configured or just broken in ways that prevent this. One example is docker mounted filesystem objects, which cannot be updated atomically from inside the container and can only be written in an unsafe manner.

This option allows Ansible to fall back to unsafe methods of updating filesystem objects when atomic operations fail (however, it doesn’t force Ansible to perform unsafe writes).

IMPORTANT! Unsafe writes are subject to race conditions and can lead to data corruption.

Choices:

false ← (default)

true

validate string

The validation command to run before copying the updated file into the final destination.

A temporary file path is used to validate, passed in through %s which must be present as in the examples below.

Also, the command is passed securely so shell features such as expansion and pipes will not work.

For an example on how to handle more complex validation than what this option provides, see handling complex validation.

Attributes Attribute

Support

Description

check_mode full

Can run in check_mode and return changed status prediction without modifying target, if not supported the action will be skipped.

diff_mode full

Will return details on what has changed (or possibly needs changing in check_mode), when in diff mode

platform Platform: posix

Target OS/families that can be operated against

safe_file_operations full

Uses Ansible’s strict file operation functions to ensure proper permissions and avoid data corruption

vault none

Can automatically decrypt Ansible vaulted files

Notes Note

As of Ansible 2.3, the dest option has been changed to path as default, but dest still works as well.

See Also See also

ansible.builtin.blockinfile Insert/update/remove a text block surrounded by marker lines.

ansible.builtin.copy Copy files to remote locations.

ansible.builtin.file Manage files and file properties.

ansible.builtin.replace Replace all instances of a particular string in a file using a back-referenced regular expression.

ansible.builtin.template Template a file out to a target host.

community.windows.win_lineinfile Ensure a particular line is in a file, or replace an existing line using a back-referenced regular expression.

Examples

NOTE: Before 2.3, option ‘dest’, ‘destfile’ or ‘name’ was used instead of ‘path’

• name: Ensure SELinux is set to enforcing mode ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /etc/selinux/config regexp: ‘^SELINUX=’ line: SELINUX=enforcing

• name: Make sure group wheel is not in the sudoers configuration ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /etc/sudoers state: absent regexp: ‘^%wheel’

• name: Replace a localhost entry with our own ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /etc/hosts regexp: ‘^127.0.0.1’ line: 127.0.0.1 localhost owner: root group: root mode: ‘0644’

• name: Replace a localhost entry searching for a literal string to avoid escaping ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /etc/hosts search_string: ‘127.0.0.1’ line: 127.0.0.1 localhost owner: root group: root mode: ‘0644’

• name: Ensure the default Apache port is 8080 ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf regexp: ‘^Listen ‘ insertafter: ‘^#Listen ‘ line: Listen 8080

• name: Ensure php extension matches new pattern ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf search_string: ‘<FilesMatch “.php[45]?$”>’ insertafter: ‘^\t<Location \/>\n’ line: ‘ <FilesMatch “.php[34]?$”>’

• name: Ensure we have our own comment added to /etc/services ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /etc/services regexp: ‘^# port for http’ insertbefore: ‘^www.*80/tcp’ line: ‘# port for http by default’

• name: Add a line to a file if the file does not exist, without passing regexp ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /tmp/testfile line: 192.168.1.99 foo.lab.net foo create: yes

NOTE: Yaml requires escaping backslashes in double quotes but not in single quotes

• name: Ensure the JBoss memory settings are exactly as needed ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /opt/jboss-as/bin/standalone.conf regexp: ‘^(.)Xms(\d+)m(.)$’ line: ‘\1Xms${xms}m\3’ backrefs: yes

NOTE: Fully quoted because of the ‘: ‘ on the line. See the Gotchas in the YAML docs.

• name: Validate the sudoers file before saving ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /etc/sudoers state: present regexp: ‘^%ADMIN ALL=’ line: ‘%ADMIN ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL’ validate: /usr/sbin/visudo -cf %s

See https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html for further details on syntax

• name: Use backrefs with alternative group syntax to avoid conflicts with variable values ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /tmp/config regexp: ^(host=).* line: \g<1>{{ hostname }} backrefs: yes Authors Daniel Hokka Zakrissoni (@dhozac)

Ahti Kitsik (@ahtik)

Jose Angel Munoz (@imjoseangel)

Collection links Issue Tracker Repository (Sources) Communication © Copyright Ansible project contributors. Last updated on Dec 29, 2025.