ansible.windows.win_template module – Template a file out to a remote server

Note

This module is part of the ansible.windows collection (version 3.9.1).

It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install ansible.windows.

To use it in a playbook, specify: ansible.windows.win_template.

Synopsis

• Templates are processed by the Jinja2 templating language.

• Documentation on the template formatting can be found in the Template Designer Documentation.

• Additional variables listed below can be used in templates.

• ansible_managed (configurable via the defaults section of ansible.cfg) contains a string which can be used to describe the template name, host, modification time of the template file and the owner uid.

• template_host contains the node name of the template’s machine.

• template_uid is the numeric user id of the owner.

• template_path is the path of the template.

• template_fullpath is the absolute path of the template.

• template_destpath is the path of the template on the remote system (added in 2.8).

• template_run_date is the date that the template was rendered.

Note

This module has a corresponding action plugin.

Parameters

Parameter	Comments
backup boolean	Determine whether a backup should be created. When set to true, 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
block_end_string string	The string marking the end of a block. Default: "%}"
block_start_string string	The string marking the beginning of a block. Default: "{%"
comment_end_string string added in ansible.windows 3.0.0	The string marking the end of a comment statement. Default: "#}"
comment_start_string string added in ansible.windows 3.0.0	The string marking the beginning of a comment statement. Default: "{#"
dest path / required	Location to render the template to on the remote machine.
force boolean	Determine when the file is being transferred if the destination already exists. When set to true, replace the remote file when contents are different than the source. When set to false, the file will only be transferred if the destination does not exist. Choices: false true ← (default)
lstrip_blocks boolean	Determine when leading spaces and tabs should be stripped. When set to true leading spaces and tabs are stripped from the start of a line to a block. This functionality requires Jinja 2.7 or newer. Choices: false ← (default) true
newline_sequence string	Specify the newline sequence to use for templating files. Choices: "\\n" "\\r" "\\r\\n" ← (default)
output_encoding string	Overrides the encoding used to write the template file defined by dest. It defaults to utf-8, but any encoding supported by python can be used. The source template file must always be encoded using utf-8, for homogeneity. Default: "utf-8"
src path / required	Path of a Jinja2 formatted template on the Ansible controller. This can be a relative or an absolute path. The file must be encoded with utf-8 but output_encoding can be used to control the encoding of the output template.
trim_blocks boolean	Determine when newlines should be removed from blocks. When set to true the first newline after a block is removed (block, not variable tag!). Choices: false true ← (default)
validate string added in ansible.windows 3.9.0	The validation command to run against the rendered template before it is copied to dest. The rendered template is transferred to a temporary directory on the remote host and its path is substituted into the command wherever the placeholder %s appears. Every occurrence of %s is replaced, all other % characters are left as is. The substituted path is already quoted for PowerShell so it is safe to use with destinations that contain spaces or backslashes. Do not add quotes of your own around %s. The command is run on the remote Windows host using the configured connection and PowerShell shell. Pipelines and other shell syntax can be used. If the command exits with a non-zero return code the task fails and dest is left untouched. The temporary copy of the rendered template is removed once the command has run. This option is ignored when the task is run in check mode, as the command could have side effects on the remote host. The command only runs when the rendered content would be copied to dest, consistent with ansible.builtin.template.
variable_end_string string	The string marking the end of a print statement. Default: "}}"
variable_start_string string	The string marking the beginning of a print statement. Default: "{{"

Notes

Note

• Including a string that uses a date in the template will result in the template being marked ‘changed’ each time.

• Also, you can override jinja2 settings by adding a special header to template file. i.e. #jinja2:variable_start_string:'[%', variable_end_string:'%]', trim_blocks: False which changes the variable interpolation markers to [% var %] instead of {{ var }}. This is the best way to prevent evaluation of things that look like, but should not be Jinja2.

• Using raw/endraw in Jinja2 will not work as you expect because templates in Ansible are recursively evaluated.

• To find Byte Order Marks in files, use Format-Hex <file> -Count 16 on Windows, and use od -a -t x1 -N 16 <file> on Linux.

• Beware fetching files from windows machines when creating templates because certain tools, such as Powershell ISE, and regedit’s export facility add a Byte Order Mark as the first character of the file, which can cause tracebacks.

• You can use the ansible.windows.win_copy module with the content: option if you prefer the template inline, as part of the playbook.

• For Linux you can use ansible.builtin.template which uses ‘\\n’ as newline_sequence by default.

See Also

See also

ansible.windows.win_copy

Copies files to remote locations on windows hosts.

ansible.windows.win_shell

Execute shell commands on target hosts.

ansible.builtin.copy

The official documentation on the ansible.builtin.copy module.

ansible.builtin.template

The official documentation on the ansible.builtin.template module.

Examples

- name: Create a file from a Jinja2 template
  ansible.windows.win_template:
    src: /mytemplates/file.conf.j2
    dest: C:\Temp\file.conf

- name: Create a Unix-style file from a Jinja2 template
  ansible.windows.win_template:
    src: unix/config.conf.j2
    dest: C:\share\unix\config.conf
    newline_sequence: '\n'
    backup: true

- name: Render template with trimmed newlines
  ansible.windows.win_template:
    src: unix/config.conf.j2
    dest: C:\share\unix\config.conf
    trim_blocks: true

- name: Render an nginx config, only writing it out once nginx has validated it
  ansible.windows.win_template:
    src: nginx.conf.j2
    dest: C:\nginx\conf\nginx.conf
    validate: C:\nginx\nginx.exe -t -c %s

- name: Render a JSON file, only writing it out if it parses
  ansible.windows.win_template:
    src: app.json.j2
    dest: C:\Program Files\App\app.json
    validate: Get-Content -LiteralPath %s -Raw | ConvertFrom-Json | Out-Null

- name: Render a PowerShell script, only writing it out if it has no syntax errors
  ansible.windows.win_template:
    src: bootstrap.ps1.j2
    dest: C:\Temp\bootstrap.ps1
    validate: $null = [ScriptBlock]::Create((Get-Content -LiteralPath %s -Raw))

Return Values

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

Key	Description
backup_file string	Name of the backup file that was created. Returned: if backup=true Sample: "C:\\Path\\To\\File.txt.11540.20150212-220915.bak"

Authors

• Jon Hawkesworth (@jhawkesworth)

Collection links

• Issue Tracker
• Repository (Sources)