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copy - Copies files to remote locations.

Synopsis

The copy module copies a file on the local box to remote locations. Use the fetch module to copy files from remote locations to the local box. If you need variable interpolation in copied files, use the template module.

Options

parameter required default choices comments
backup
 no no
  • yes
  • no
Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly.
content
 no
When used instead of 'src', sets the contents of a file directly to the specified value. This is for simple values, for anything complex or with formatting please switch to the template module.
dest
 yes
Remote absolute path where the file should be copied to. If src is a directory, this must be a directory too.
directory_mode
(added in 1.5)
 no
When doing a recursive copy set the mode for the directories. If this is not set we will use the system defaults. The mode is only set on directories which are newly created, and will not affect those that already existed.
follow
(added in 1.8)
 no no
  • yes
  • no
This flag indicates that filesystem links, if they exist, should be followed.
force
 no yes
  • yes
  • no
the default is yes, which will replace the remote file when contents are different than the source. If no, the file will only be transferred if the destination does not exist.
aliases: thirsty
group
 no
Name of the group that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
mode
 no
Mode the file or directory should be. For those used to /usr/bin/chmod remember that modes are actually octal numbers (like 0644). Leaving off the leading zero will likely have unexpected results. As of version 1.8, the mode may be specified as a symbolic mode (for example, u+rwx or u=rw,g=r,o=r).
owner
 no
Name of the user that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
remote_src
(added in 2.0)
 no no
  • True
  • False
If False, it will search for src at originating/master machine, if True it will go to the remote/target machine for the src. Default is False.
Currently remote_src does not support recursive copying.
selevel
 no s0
Level part of the SELinux file context. This is the MLS/MCS attribute, sometimes known as the range. _default feature works as for seuser.
serole
 no
Role part of SELinux file context, _default feature works as for seuser.
setype
 no
Type part of SELinux file context, _default feature works as for seuser.
seuser
 no
User part of SELinux file context. Will default to system policy, if applicable. If set to _default, it will use the user portion of the policy if available.
src
 no
Local path to a file to copy to the remote server; can be absolute or relative. If path is a directory, it is copied recursively. In this case, if path ends with "/", only inside contents of that directory are copied to destination. Otherwise, if it does not end with "/", the directory itself with all contents is copied. This behavior is similar to Rsync.
unsafe_writes
(added in 2.2)
 no
Normally this module uses atomic operations to prevent data corruption or inconsistent reads from the target files, sometimes systems are configured or just broken in ways that prevent this. One example are docker mounted files, they cannot be updated atomically and can only be done in an unsafe manner.
This boolean option allows ansible to fall back to unsafe methods of updating files for those cases in which you do not have any other choice. Be aware that this is subject to race conditions and can lead to data corruption.
validate
 no None
The validation command to run before copying into place. The path to the file to validate is passed in via '%s' which must be present as in the example below. The command is passed securely so shell features like expansion and pipes won't work.

Examples

# Example from Ansible Playbooks
- copy: src=/srv/myfiles/foo.conf dest=/etc/foo.conf owner=foo group=foo mode=0644

# The same example as above, but using a symbolic mode equivalent to 0644
- copy: src=/srv/myfiles/foo.conf dest=/etc/foo.conf owner=foo group=foo mode="u=rw,g=r,o=r"

# Another symbolic mode example, adding some permissions and removing others
- copy: src=/srv/myfiles/foo.conf dest=/etc/foo.conf owner=foo group=foo mode="u+rw,g-wx,o-rwx"

# Copy a new "ntp.conf file into place, backing up the original if it differs from the copied version
- copy: src=/mine/ntp.conf dest=/etc/ntp.conf owner=root group=root mode=644 backup=yes

# Copy a new "sudoers" file into place, after passing validation with visudo
- copy: src=/mine/sudoers dest=/etc/sudoers validate='visudo -cf %s'

Return Values

Common return values are documented here Common Return Values, the following are the fields unique to this module:

name description returned type sample
src source file used for the copy on the target machine changed string /home/httpd/.ansible/tmp/ansible-tmp-1423796390.97-147729857856000/source
backup_file name of backup file created changed and if backup=yes string [email protected]:09~
uid owner id of the file, after execution success int 100
dest destination file/path success string /path/to/file.txt
checksum sha1 checksum of the file after running copy success string 6e642bb8dd5c2e027bf21dd923337cbb4214f827
md5sum md5 checksum of the file after running copy when supported string 2a5aeecc61dc98c4d780b14b330e3282
state state of the target, after execution success string file
gid group id of the file, after execution success int 100
mode permissions of the target, after execution success string 0644
owner owner of the file, after execution success string httpd
group group of the file, after execution success string httpd
size size of the target, after execution success int 1220

Notes

Note

The “copy” module recursively copy facility does not scale to lots (>hundreds) of files. For alternative, see synchronize module, which is a wrapper around rsync.

This is a Core Module

For more information on what this means please read Core Modules

For help in developing on modules, should you be so inclined, please read Community Information & Contributing, developing_test_pr and Developing Modules.

© 2012–2016 Michael DeHaan
© 2016 Red Hat, Inc.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/copy_module.html