interfaces_file - Tweak settings in /etc/network/interfaces files

New in version 2.4.

Synopsis

• Manage (add, remove, change) individual interface options in an interfaces-style file without having to manage the file as a whole with, say, template or assemble. Interface has to be presented in a file.
• Read information about interfaces from interfaces-styled files

Parameters

Parameter	Choices/Defaults	Comments
attributes (added in 2.3)		Attributes the file or directory should have. To get supported flags look at the man page for chattr on the target system. This string should contain the attributes in the same order as the one displayed by lsattr. = operator is assumed as default, otherwise + or - operators need to be included in the string. aliases: attr
backup bool	Choices: no ← yes	Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly.
dest	Default: /etc/network/interfaces	Path to the interfaces file
group		Name of the group that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
iface		Name of the interface, required for value changes or option remove
mode		Mode the file or directory should be. For those used to /usr/bin/chmod remember that modes are actually octal numbers. You must either add a leading zero so that Ansible's YAML parser knows it is an octal number (like 0644 or 01777) or quote it (like '644' or '1777') so Ansible receives a string and can do its own conversion from string into number. Giving Ansible a number without following one of these rules will end up with a decimal number which will have unexpected results. As of version 1.8, the mode may be specified as a symbolic mode (for example, u+rwx or u=rw,g=r,o=r).
option		Name of the option, required for value changes or option remove
owner		Name of the user that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
selevel	Default: s0	Level part of the SELinux file context. This is the MLS/MCS attribute, sometimes known as the range. _default feature works as for seuser.
serole		Role part of SELinux file context, _default feature works as for seuser.
setype		Type part of SELinux file context, _default feature works as for seuser.
seuser		User part of SELinux file context. Will default to system policy, if applicable. If set to _default, it will use the user portion of the policy if available.
state	Choices: present ← absent	If set to absent the option or section will be removed if present instead of created.
unsafe_writes bool (added in 2.2)	Choices: no ← yes	By default this module uses atomic operations to prevent data corruption or inconsistent reads from the target files, but sometimes systems are configured or just broken in ways that prevent this. One example is docker mounted files, which cannot be updated atomically from inside the container and can only be written in an unsafe manner. This option allows Ansible to fall back to unsafe methods of updating files when atomic operations fail (however, it doesn't force Ansible to perform unsafe writes). IMPORTANT! Unsafe writes are subject to race conditions and can lead to data corruption.
value		If option is not presented for the interface and state is present option will be added. If option already exists and is not pre-up, up, post-up or down, it's value will be updated. pre-up, up, post-up and down options can't be updated, only adding new options, removing existing ones or cleaning the whole option set are supported

Notes

Note

• If option is defined multiple times last one will be updated but all will be deleted in case of an absent state

Examples

# Set eth1 mtu configuration value to 8000
- interfaces_file:
    dest: /etc/network/interfaces.d/eth1.cfg
    iface: eth1
    option: mtu
    value: 8000
    backup: yes
    state: present
  register: eth1_cfg

Return Values

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

Key				Returned	Description
dest string				success	destination file/path Sample: /etc/network/interfaces
ifaces complex				success	interfaces dictionary
	ifaces dictionary			success	interface dictionary
		eth0 dictionary		success	Name of the interface
			down list	success	list of down scripts Sample: ['route del -net 10.10.10.0/24 gw 10.10.10.1 dev eth1', 'route del -net 10.10.11.0/24 gw 10.10.11.1 dev eth2']
			method string	success	interface method Sample: manual
			address_family string	success	interface address family Sample: inet
			post-up list	success	list of post-up scripts Sample: ['route add -net 10.10.10.0/24 gw 10.10.10.1 dev eth1', 'route add -net 10.10.11.0/24 gw 10.10.11.1 dev eth2']
			pre-up list	success	list of pre-up scripts Sample: ['route add -net 10.10.10.0/24 gw 10.10.10.1 dev eth1', 'route add -net 10.10.11.0/24 gw 10.10.11.1 dev eth2']
			up list	success	list of up scripts Sample: ['route add -net 10.10.10.0/24 gw 10.10.10.1 dev eth1', 'route add -net 10.10.11.0/24 gw 10.10.11.1 dev eth2']
			mtu string	success	other options, all values returned as strings Sample: 1500

Status

This module is flagged as stableinterface which means that the maintainers for this module guarantee that no backward incompatible interface changes will be made.

Maintenance

This module is flagged as community which means that it is maintained by the Ansible Community. See Module Maintenance & Support for more info.

For a list of other modules that are also maintained by the Ansible Community, see here.

Author

• Roman Belyakovsky (@hryamzik)

Hint

If you notice any issues in this documentation you can edit this document to improve it.