Ansible copy a directory content to another directory

Question

I am trying to copy the content of dist directory to nginx directory   - name  copy html file   copy  src  home vagrant dist  dest  usr share nginx html    But when I execute the playbook it throws an error   TASK  NGINX   copy html file                                                     fatal   172 16 8 200   FAILED    gt    changed   false   failed   true   msg    attempted to take checksum of directory  home vagrant dist      How can I copy a directory that has another directory and a file inside

User · Accepted Answer

Resolved answer  To copy a directory s content to another directory I use the next   - name  copy consul ui files   command  cp -r  home    user    dist    item     usr share nginx html   with items     -  index html     -  static     It copies both items to the other directory  In the example  one of the items is a directory and the other is not  It works perfectly

User · Answer

EDIT  This solution worked when the question was posted  Later Ansible deprecated recursive copying with remote src Ansible Copy module by default copies files dirs from control machine to remote machine  If you want to copy files dirs in remote machine and if you have Ansible 2 0  set remote src to yes - name  copy html file   copy  src  home vagrant dist  dest  usr share nginx html  remote src yes directory mode yes

User · Answer

the ansible doc is quite clear  https   docs ansible com ansible latest collections ansible builtin copy module html for parameter src it says the following  Local path to a file to copy to the remote server  This can be absolute or relative  If path is a directory  it is copied recursively  In this case  if path ends with  quot   quot    only inside contents of that directory are copied to destination  Otherwise  if it  does not end with  quot   quot   the directory itself with all contents is copied  This behavior  is similar to the rsync command line tool   So what you need is skip the   at the end of your src path  - name  copy html file   copy  src  home vagrant dist dest  usr share nginx html

User · Answer

Ansible remote src does not support recursive copying See remote src description in Ansible copy docs  To recursively copy the contents of a folder and to make sure the task stays idempotent I usually do it this way   - name  get file names to copy   command   find  home vagrant dist -type f    register  files to copy  - name  copy files   copy      src      item          dest    usr share nginx html      owner  nginx     group  nginx     remote src  True     mode  0644   with items     -     files to copy stdout lines       Downside is that the find command still shows up as  changed

User · Answer

You could use the synchronize module  The example from the documentation    Synchronize two directories on one remote host  - synchronize      src   first absolute path     dest   second absolute path   delegate to   quot    inventory hostname    quot   This has the added benefit that it will be more efficient for large many files

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This I found an ideal solution for copying file from Ansible server to remote   copying  yaml file  - hosts  localhost   user     user      connection  ssh   become  yes   gather facts  no   tasks     - name  Creation of directory on remote server      file         path   var lib jenkins  aws        state  directory        mode  0755      register  result    - debug          var  result     - name  get file names to copy      command   find conf  aws -type f       register  files to copy     - name  copy files      copy        src      item            dest    var lib jenkins  aws        owner     user          group     group          remote src  True       mode  0644      with items        -     files to copy stdout lines

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I found a workaround for recursive copying from remote to remote    - name  List files in  usr share easy-rsa   find      path   usr share easy-rsa     recurse  yes     file type  any   register  find result  - name  Create the directories   file      path      item path   regex replace   usr share easy-rsa    etc easy-rsa           state  directory     mode      item mode       with items      -     find result files       when      - item isdir  - name  Copy the files   copy      src      item path         dest      item path   regex replace   usr share easy-rsa    etc easy-rsa           remote src  yes     mode      item mode       with items      -     find result files       when      - item isdir    False

User · Answer

The simplest solution I ve found to copy the contents of a folder without copying the folder itself is to use the following   - name  Move directory contents   command  cp -r   lt source path gt      lt dest path gt     This resolves  surfer190 s follow-up question      Hmmm what if you want to copy the entire contents  I noticed that   doesn t work     surfer190 Jul 23  16 at 7 29     is a shell glob  in that it relies on your shell to enumerate all the files within the folder before running cp  while the   directly instructs cp to get the directory contents  see https   askubuntu com questions 86822 how-can-i-copy-the-contents-of-a-folder-to-another-folder-in-a-different-directo

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Below worked for me   -name  Upload html app directory to Deployment host  copy  src  var lib jenkins workspace Demoapp html dest  var www  directory mode yes

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To copy a directory s content to another directory you can use ansibles copy module   - name  Copy content of directory  files    copy      src  files       note the      lt --         dest   tmp files    From the docs about the src parameter     If  src   path is a directory  it is copied recursively        if path ends with      only inside contents of that directory are copied to destination      if it does not end with      the directory itself with all contents is copied

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How to copy directory and sub dirs s and files from ansible server to remote host - name  copy nmonchart39 directory  to    inventory hostname      copy      src   home ansib usr srv automation monitoring nmonchart39     dest   var nmon data   Where  copy entire directory  src   automation monitoring nmonchart39 copy directory contents src  nmonchart39

User · Answer

I got involved whole a day  too  and finally found the solution in shell command instead of copy  or command  as below   - hosts  remote-server-name   gather facts  no   vars      src path    path to source       des path    path to dest     tasks    - name  Ansible copy files remote to remote     shell   cp -r    src path         des path       strictly notice to   1  src path and des path end by   symbol   2  in shell command src path ends by   which shows all content of directory  3  I used my remote-server-name both in hosts  and execute shell     section of jenkins  instead of remote src  specifier in playbook   I guess it is a good advice to run below command in Execute Shell section in jenkins   ansible-playbook  copy-payment yml -i remote-server-name

[ansible] Ansible: copy a directory content to another directory

Examples related to ansible

Examples related to ansible-2.x