# ansible.builtin.blockinfile
This module will insert/update/remove a block of multi-line text surrounded by customizable marker lines
## Parameter
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
| ---------------- | --------------- | -------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **attributes** | string | - | The attributes the resulting filesystem object should have. To get supported flags look at the man page for [chattr](../../../applications/cli/system/chattr.md) on the target system. The = operator is assumed as default, otherwise + or - operators need to be included in the string. |
| **backup** | boolean | false | Create a backup file including the timestamp information so you can get the original file back if you somehow clobbered it incorrectly. |
| **block** | string | "" | The text to insert inside the marker lines. If it is missing or an empty string, the block will be removed as if state were specified to absent. |
| **create** | boolean | false | Create a new file if it does not exist. |
| **group** | string | - | Name of the group that should own the filesystem object, as would be fed to chown. When left unspecified, it uses the current group of the current user unless you are root, in which case it can preserve the previous ownership. |
| **insertafter** | string | "EOF" | If specified and no begin/ending marker lines are found, the block will be inserted after the last match of specified regular expression. A special value is available; EOF for inserting the block at the end of the file. If specified regular expression has no matches, EOF will be used instead. The presence of the multiline flag (?m) in the regular expression controls whether the match is done line by line or with multiple lines. This behaviour was added in ansible-core 2.14. |
| **insertbefore** | string | - | If specified and no begin/ending marker lines are found, the block will be inserted before the last match of specified regular expression. A special value is available; BOF for inserting the block at the beginning of the file. If specified regular expression has no matches, the block will be inserted at the end of the file. The presence of the multiline flag (?m) in the regular expression controls whether the match is done line by line or with multiple lines. This behaviour was added in ansible-core 2.14. |
| **marker** | string | "# {mark} ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK" | The marker line template. {mark} will be replaced with the values in marker_begin (default=”BEGIN”) and marker_end (default=”END”). Using a custom marker without the {mark} variable may result in the block being repeatedly inserted on subsequent playbook runs. Multi-line markers are not supported and will result in the block being repeatedly inserted on subsequent playbook runs. A newline is automatically appended by the module to marker_begin and marker_end. |
| **marker_begin** | string | "BEGIN" | This will be inserted at `{mark}` in the opening ansible block marker. |
| **marker_end** | string | "END" | This will be inserted at `{mark}` in the closing ansible block marker. |
| **mode** | any | - | The permissions the resulting filesystem object should have. For those used to _/usr/bin/chmod_ remember that modes are actually octal numbers. You must give Ansible enough information to parse them correctly. For consistent results, quote octal numbers (for example, `'644'` or `'1777'`) so Ansible receives a string and can do its own conversion from string into number. Adding a leading zero (for example, `0755`) works sometimes, but can fail in loops and some other circumstances. Giving Ansible a number without following either of these rules will end up with a decimal number which will have unexpected results. As of Ansible 1.8, the mode may be specified as a symbolic mode (for example, `u+rwx` or `u=rw,g=r,o=r`). If `mode` is not specified and the destination filesystem object **does not** exist, the default `umask` on the system will be used when setting the mode for the newly created filesystem object. If `mode` is not specified and the destination filesystem object **does** exist, the mode of the existing filesystem object will be used. |
| **owner** | string | - | Name of the user that should own the filesystem object, as would be fed to chown. When left unspecified, it uses the current user unless you are root, in which case it can preserve the previous ownership. Specifying a numeric username will be assumed to be a user ID and not a username. Avoid numeric usernames to avoid this confusion. |
| **path** | path / required | - | The file to modify. |
| **state** | string | "present" | Whether the block should be there or not. **Choices:** (`"absent"`, `"present"`) |
| **validate** | string | - | The validation command to run before copying the updated file into the final destination. A temporary file path is used to validate, passed in through ‘%s’ which must be present as in the examples below. Also, the command is passed securely so [shell](../../../applications/cli/Shell.md) features such as expansion and pipes will not work. |
## Examples
```yaml
# Before Ansible 2.3, option 'dest' or 'name' was used instead of 'path'
- name: Insert/Update "Match User" configuration block in /etc/ssh/sshd_config
ansible.builtin.blockinfile:
path: /etc/ssh/sshd_config
block: |
Match User ansible-agent
PasswordAuthentication no
- name: Insert/Update eth0 configuration stanza in /etc/network/interfaces
(it might be better to copy files into /etc/network/interfaces.d/)
ansible.builtin.blockinfile:
path: /etc/network/interfaces
block: |
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.0.2.23
netmask 255.255.255.0
- name: Insert/Update configuration using a local file and validate it
ansible.builtin.blockinfile:
block: "{{ lookup('ansible.builtin.file', './local/sshd_config') }}"
path: /etc/ssh/sshd_config
backup: yes
validate: /usr/sbin/sshd -T -f %s
- name: Insert/Update HTML surrounded by custom markers after line
ansible.builtin.blockinfile:
path: /var/www/html/index.html
marker: ""
insertafter: ""
block: |
Welcome to {{ ansible_hostname }}
Last updated on {{ ansible_date_time.iso8601 }}
- name: Remove HTML as well as surrounding markers
ansible.builtin.blockinfile:
path: /var/www/html/index.html
marker: ""
block: ""
- name: Add mappings to /etc/hosts
ansible.builtin.blockinfile:
path: /etc/hosts
block: |
{{ item.ip }} {{ item.name }}
marker: "# {mark} ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK {{ item.name }}"
loop:
- { name: host1, ip: 10.10.1.10 }
- { name: host2, ip: 10.10.1.11 }
- { name: host3, ip: 10.10.1.12 }
- name: Search with a multiline search flags regex and if found insert after
blockinfile:
path: listener.ora
block: "{{ listener_line | indent(width=8, first=True) }}"
insertafter: '(?m)SID_LIST_LISTENER_DG =\n.*\(SID_LIST ='
marker: " "
```