If you have a simple directory containing multiple template files that should be generated on a target host, the ‘with_fileglob‘ lookup plugin provides an easy way to render them. Below is an example rendering all the files from the ‘templates’ directory of a role.
- name: create file out of every file in template directory
template:
src: "{{item}}"
dest: /tmp/.
with_fileglob: "{{role_path}}/templates/*"
But ‘with_fileglob’ handles only flat directories and cannot handle the situation where there are subdirectories of templates that you would like to render. This is where the ‘with_filetree‘ lookup plugin can assist. This is included in the the ‘community.general‘ collection, so first ensure it is installed.
# install 'community.general' collection ansible-galaxy collection install community.general ansible-galaxy collection list
Assuming there is a set of nested subdirectories in the ‘templates’ directory of the role, first do the directory creation then follow that by template file generation. This separation of directories versus files allows for better sensing of changes.
- set_fact:
dest_dir: /tmp/filetreetest
- name: Create directory structure
file:
path: '{{dest_dir}}/{{ item.path }}'
state: directory
mode: '{{ item.mode }}'
with_filetree: '{{role_path}}/templates/'
loop_control:
label: '{{item.path}}'
when: item.state == 'directory'
- name: Generate Template files with directory structure
template:
src: '{{ item.src }}'
dest: '{{dest_dir}}/{{ item.path }}'
mode: '{{ item.mode }}'
with_filetree: '{{role_path}}/templates/'
loop_control:
label: '{{item.path}}'
when: item.state == 'file'
The ‘loop_control’ is not essential, but abbreviates the output for better readability of the Ansible output.
If you are using my example on github playbook-filetree.yaml, with the filetreetest role, this can be tested using the following invocation.
ansible-playbook playbook-filetree.yml --connection=local
REFERENCES
ansible galaxy, community.general collection
stackoverflow, example using with_filetree
stackoverflow, another example using with_filetree
NOTES
‘with_filetree’ works fine, but if you want to be explicit about the namespace of the collection, use ‘with_community.general.filetree’