Populate a file with the values registered from a variable

Sometimes you need to run a command and redirect the output to a file. You can use the shell module but if you want to follow best practices and avoid the shell module, you can use Jinja templates


 Using a Jinja template

•     Identify the name of the variable on the remote host that you want to use

              ansible zubi -m setup | grep mounts

              "ansible_mounts": [

• Create the Jinja template and give it some format

           cat /etc/ansible/templates/df.jinja2
           {{ ansible_mounts | json_query('[].mount') | to_nice_yaml }}

• Create the playbook that will populate the file. Using the template module

---

- hosts: zubi

  become: yes

  become_user: root

  become_method: sudo

  tasks:

   - name: build filesystem list

     template:

          src: /etc/ansible/templates/df.jinja2

          dest: /var/lsoffs

Result:

[ec2-user@zubi ~]$ cat /var/lsoffs

- /

- /var

- /opt

- /tmp