Ansible How to delete files and folders inside a directory

Question

The below code only deletes the first file it gets inside the web dir  I want to remove all the files and folders inside the web directory and retain the web directory  How can I do that      - name  remove web dir contents      file  path   home mydata web    item     state absent      with fileglob         -  home mydata web     Note  I ve tried rm -rf using command and shell  but they don t work  Perhaps I am using them wrongly   Any help in the right direction will be appreciated   I am using ansible 2 1 0 0

User · Answer

I want to make sure that the find command only deletes everything inside the directory and leave the directory intact because in my case the directory is a filesystem. The system will generate an error when trying to delete a filesystem but that is not a nice option. Iam using the shell option because that is the only working option I found so far for this question.

What I did:

Edit the hosts file to put in some variables:

[all:vars]
COGNOS_HOME=/tmp/cognos
find=/bin/find

And create a playbook:

- hosts: all
  tasks:
  - name: Ansible remove files
    shell: "{{ find }} {{ COGNOS_HOME }} -xdev -mindepth 1 -delete"

This will delete all files and directories in the COGNOS_HOME variable directory/filesystem. The "-mindepth 1" option makes sure that the current directory will not be touched.

User · Answer

Created an overall rehauled and fail-safe implementation from all comments and suggestions     collect stats about the dir - name  check directory exists   stat      path      directory path       register  dir to delete    delete directory if condition is true - name  purge   directory path     file      state  absent     path      directory path        when  dir to delete stat exists and dir to delete stat isdir    create directory if deleted  or if it didn t exist at all  - name  create directory again   file      state  directory     path      directory path       when  dir to delete is defined or dir to delete stat exist    False

User · Answer

Remove the directory  basically a copy of https   stackoverflow com a 38201611 1695680   Ansible does this operation with rmtree under the hood   - name  remove files and directories   file      state      item         path    srv deleteme       owner  1000    set your owner  group  and mode accordingly     group  1000     mode   0777    with items      - absent     - directory     If you don t have the luxury of removing the whole directory and recreating it  you can scan it for files   and directories   and delete them one by one  Which will take a while  You probably want to make sure you have  ssh connection  npipelining   True in your ansible cfg on   - block    - name   collect files      find        paths    srv deleteme         hidden  True       recurse  True         file type  any    Added in ansible 2 3     register  collected files    - name   collect directories      find        paths    srv deleteme         hidden  True       recurse  True       file type  directory     register  collected directories    - name  remove collected files and directories     file        path      item path           state  absent     with items   gt                   collected files files           collected directories files

User · Answer

Assuming you are always in Linux  try the find cmd   - name  Clean everything inside    item      shell  test -d    item     amp  amp  find    item    -path     item       -prune -exec rm -rf         with items    home mydata web    This should wipe out files folders hidden under  home mydata web

User · Answer

Below code worked for me   - name  Get directory listing   become  yes   find      paths   applications cache     patterns          hidden  yes   register  directory content result  - name  Remove directory content   become  yes   file      path   quot    item path    quot      state  absent   with items   quot    directory content result files    quot

User · Answer

Just a small cleaner copy  amp  paste template of ThorSummoners answer  if you are using Ansible    2 3  distinction between files and dirs not necessary anymore    - name  Collect all fs items inside dir   find      path      target directory path         hidden  true     file type  any   changed when  false   register  collected fsitems - name  Remove all fs items inside dir   file      path      item path         state  absent   with items      collected fsitems files       when  collected fsitems matched int    0

User · Answer

Using file glob also it will work  There is some syntax error in the code you posted  I have modified and tested this should work   - name  remove web dir contents   file      path      item         state  absent   with fileglob      -   home mydata web

User · Answer

I have written an custom ansible module to cleanup files based on multiple filters like age  timestamp  glob patterns  etc   It is also compatible with ansible older versions  It can be found here   Here is an example   - cleanup files    path pattern   tmp   log   state  absent   excludes      - foo      - bar

User · Answer

Isn t it that simple     tested working    eg  --- - hosts  localhost   vars       cleandir   var lib cloud    tasks     - shell  ls -a -I     -I         cleandir         register  ls2del      ignore errors  yes    - name  Cleanup    cleandir         file         path   quot    cleandir      item    quot         state  absent      with items   quot    ls2del stdout lines    quot

User · Answer

Below code will delete the entire contents of artifact path  - name  Clean artifact path   file      state  absent     path      artifact path        Note  this will delete the directory too

User · Answer

Below worked for me   - name  Ansible delete html directory   file     path   var www html    state  directory

User · Answer

That s what I come up with   - name  Get directory listing   find      path      directory          file type  any     hidden  yes   register  directory content result  - name  Remove directory content   file      path      item path          state  absent   with items      directory content result files        loop control      label      item path        First  we re getting directory listing with find  setting    file type to any  so we wouldn t miss nested directories and links hidden to yes  so we don t skip hidden files also  do not set recurse to yes  since it is not only unnecessary  but may increase execution time     Then  we go through that list with file module  It s output is a bit verbose  so loop control label will help us with limiting output  found this advice here      But I found previous solution to be somewhat slow  since it iterates through the content  so I went with   - name  Get directory stats   stat      path      directory       register  directory stat  - name  Delete directory   file      path      directory         state  absent  - name  Create directory   file      path      directory         state  directory     owner      directory stat stat pw name         group      directory stat stat gr name         mode      directory stat stat mode        get directory properties with the stat delete directory recreate directory with the same properties    That was enough for me  but you can add attributes as well  if you want

User · Answer

I really didn t like the rm solution  also ansible gives you warnings about using rm   So here is how to do it without the need of rm and without ansible warnings    - hosts  all   tasks    - name  Ansible delete file glob     find        paths   etc Ansible       patterns     txt      register  files to delete    - name  Ansible remove file glob     file        path      item path           state  absent     with items      files to delete files       source  http   www mydailytutorials com ansible-delete-multiple-files-directories-ansible

User · Answer

Using shell module  idempotent too   - shell   bin rm -rf  home mydata web    If there are dot hidden files  - shell   bin rm -rf  home mydata web    home mydata web     Cleanest solution if you don t care about creation date and owner permissions  - file  path  home mydata web state absent - file  path  home mydata web state directory

User · Answer

This is my example    Install repo Install rsyslog package stop rsyslog delete all files inside  var log rsyslog  start rsyslog   - hosts  all   tasks      - name  Install rsyslog-v8 yum repo       template          src  files rsyslog repo         dest   etc yum repos d rsyslog repo      - name  Install rsyslog-v8 package       yum          name  rsyslog         state  latest      - name  Stop rsyslog       systemd          name  rsyslog         state  stopped      - name  cleann up  var spool rsyslog       shell   bin rm -rf  var spool rsyslog        - name  Start rsyslog       systemd          name  rsyslog         state  started

User · Answer

- name  delete old data and clean cache     file        path   quot    item 0     quot         state   quot    item 1     quot      with nested        -    quot  data server    app name    webapps  quot    quot  data server    app name    work  quot          -    quot absent quot    quot directory quot        ignore errors  yes

User · Answer

While Ansible  is still debating to implement state   empty  https   github com ansible ansible-modules-core issues 902  my folder    home mydata web   empty path    tmp empty    - name   Create empty folder for wiping     file      path      empty path          state  directory  - name   Wipe clean    my folder    with empty folder hack     synchronize      mode  push       note the backslash here     src      empty path            dest      nl code path         recursive  yes     delete  yes   delegate to      inventory hostname       Note though  with synchronize you should be able to sync your files  with delete  properly anyway

User · Answer

try the below command  it should work  - shell  ls -1  some dir   register  contents  - file  path  some dir    item    state absent   with items     contents stdout lines

User · Answer

There is an issue open with respect to this   For now  the solution works for me  create a empty folder locally and synchronize it with the remote one   Here is a sample playbook   - name   Empty directory    hosts      tasks      - name   Create an empty directory  locally         local action          module  file         state  directory         path    tmp empty       - name  Empty remote directory       synchronize          src   tmp empty          dest   home mydata web          delete  yes         recursive  yes

[ansible] Ansible: How to delete files and folders inside a directory?

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