Documentation

synchronize - A wrapper around rsync to make common tasks in your playbooks quick and easy.

New in version 1.4.

Synopsis

  • synchronize is a wrapper around rsync to make common tasks in your playbooks quick and easy. It is run and originates on the local host where Ansible is being run. Of course, you could just use the command action to call rsync yourself, but you also have to add a fair number of boilerplate options and host facts. synchronize is not intended to provide access to the full power of rsync, but does make the most common invocations easier to implement. You still may need to call rsync directly via command or shell depending on your use case.

Parameters

Parameter
Choices/Defaults
Comments
archive
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes ←
Mirrors the rsync archive flag, enables recursive, links, perms, times, owner, group flags and -D.
checksum
(added in 1.6)
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Skip based on checksum, rather than mod-time & size; Note that that "archive" option is still enabled by default - the "checksum" option will not disable it.
compress
(added in 1.7)
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes ←
Compress file data during the transfer. In most cases, leave this enabled unless it causes problems.
copy_links
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Copy symlinks as the item that they point to (the referent) is copied, rather than the symlink.
delete
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Delete files in dest that don't exist (after transfer, not before) in the src path. This option requires recursive=yes.
dest
required
Path on the destination host that will be synchronized from the source; The path can be absolute or relative.
dest_port
(added in 1.5)
Default:
Value of ansible_ssh_port for this host, remote_port config setting, or the value from ssh client configuration if none of those are set
Port number for ssh on the destination host. Prior to ansible 2.0, the ansible_ssh_port inventory var took precedence over this value.
dirs
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Transfer directories without recursing
existing_only
(added in 1.5)
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Skip creating new files on receiver.
group
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
Default:
the value of the archive option
Preserve group
link_dest
(added in 2.5)
Default:
None
add a destination to hard link against during the rsync.
links
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
Default:
the value of the archive option
Copy symlinks as symlinks.
mode
    Choices:
  • pull
  • push ←
Specify the direction of the synchronization. In push mode the localhost or delegate is the source; In pull mode the remote host in context is the source.
owner
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
Default:
the value of the archive option
Preserve owner (super user only)
partial
(added in 2.0)
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Tells rsync to keep the partial file which should make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster.
perms
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
Default:
the value of the archive option
Preserve permissions.
private_key
(added in 1.6)
Specify the private key to use for SSH-based rsync connections (e.g. ~/.ssh/id_rsa)
recursive
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
Default:
the value of the archive option
Recurse into directories.
rsync_opts
(added in 1.6)
Default:
None
Specify additional rsync options by passing in an array.
rsync_path
Specify the rsync command to run on the remote host. See --rsync-path on the rsync man page.
rsync_timeout
Default:
no
Specify a --timeout for the rsync command in seconds.
set_remote_user
Default:
yes
put user@ for the remote paths. If you have a custom ssh config to define the remote user for a host that does not match the inventory user, you should set this parameter to "no".
src
required
Path on the source host that will be synchronized to the destination; The path can be absolute or relative.
times
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
Default:
the value of the archive option
Preserve modification times
use_ssh_args
(added in 2.0)
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Use the ssh_args specified in ansible.cfg
verify_host
(added in 2.0)
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Verify destination host key.

Notes

Note

  • rsync must be installed on both the local and remote host.
  • For the synchronize module, the “local host” is the host the synchronize task originates on, and the “destination host” is the host synchronize is connecting to.
  • The “local host” can be changed to a different host by using delegate_to. This enables copying between two remote hosts or entirely on one remote machine.
  • The user and permissions for the synchronize src are those of the user running the Ansible task on the local host (or the remote_user for a delegate_to host when delegate_to is used).
  • The user and permissions for the synchronize dest are those of the remote_user on the destination host or the become_user if become=yes is active.
  • In 2.0.0.0 a bug in the synchronize module made become occur on the “local host”. This was fixed in 2.0.1.
  • Currently, synchronize is limited to elevating permissions via passwordless sudo. This is because rsync itself is connecting to the remote machine and rsync doesn’t give us a way to pass sudo credentials in.
  • Currently there are only a few connection types which support synchronize (ssh, paramiko, local, and docker) because a sync strategy has been determined for those connection types. Note that the connection for these must not need a password as rsync itself is making the connection and rsync does not provide us a way to pass a password to the connection.
  • Expect that dest=~/x will be ~<remote_user>/x even if using sudo.
  • Inspect the verbose output to validate the destination user/host/path are what was expected.
  • To exclude files and directories from being synchronized, you may add .rsync-filter files to the source directory.
  • rsync daemon must be up and running with correct permission when using rsync protocol in source or destination path.
  • The synchronize module forces –delay-updates to avoid leaving a destination in a broken in-between state if the underlying rsync process encounters an error. Those synchronizing large numbers of files that are willing to trade safety for performance should call rsync directly.
  • link_destination is subject to the same limitations as the underlaying rsync daemon. Hard links are only preserved if the relative subtrees of the source and destination are the same. Attempts to hardlink into a directory that is a subdirectory of the source will be prevented.

Examples

- name: Synchronization of src on the control machine to dest on the remote hosts
  synchronize:
    src: some/relative/path
    dest: /some/absolute/path

- name: Synchronization using rsync protocol (push)
  synchronize:
    src: some/relative/path/
    dest: rsync://somehost.com/path/

- name: Synchronization using rsync protocol (pull)
  synchronize:
    mode: pull
    src: rsync://somehost.com/path/
    dest: /some/absolute/path/

- name:  Synchronization using rsync protocol on delegate host (push)
  synchronize:
    src: /some/absolute/path/
    dest: rsync://somehost.com/path/
  delegate_to: delegate.host

- name: Synchronization using rsync protocol on delegate host (pull)
  synchronize:
    mode: pull
    src: rsync://somehost.com/path/
    dest: /some/absolute/path/
  delegate_to: delegate.host

- name: Synchronization without any --archive options enabled
  synchronize:
    src: some/relative/path
    dest: /some/absolute/path
    archive: no

- name: Synchronization with --archive options enabled except for --recursive
  synchronize:
    src: some/relative/path
    dest: /some/absolute/path
    recursive: no

- name: Synchronization with --archive options enabled except for --times, with --checksum option enabled
  synchronize:
    src: some/relative/path
    dest: /some/absolute/path
    checksum: yes
    times: no

- name: Synchronization without --archive options enabled except use --links
  synchronize:
    src: some/relative/path
    dest: /some/absolute/path
    archive: no
    links: yes

- name: Synchronization of two paths both on the control machine
  synchronize:
    src: some/relative/path
    dest: /some/absolute/path
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: Synchronization of src on the inventory host to the dest on the localhost in pull mode
  synchronize:
    mode: pull
    src: some/relative/path
    dest: /some/absolute/path

- name: Synchronization of src on delegate host to dest on the current inventory host.
  synchronize:
    src: /first/absolute/path
    dest: /second/absolute/path
  delegate_to: delegate.host

- name: Synchronize two directories on one remote host.
  synchronize:
    src: /first/absolute/path
    dest: /second/absolute/path
  delegate_to: "{{ inventory_hostname }}"

- name: Synchronize and delete files in dest on the remote host that are not found in src of localhost.
  synchronize:
    src: some/relative/path
    dest: /some/absolute/path
    delete: yes
    recursive: yes

# This specific command is granted su privileges on the destination
- name: Synchronize using an alternate rsync command
  synchronize:
    src: some/relative/path
    dest: /some/absolute/path
    rsync_path: "su -c rsync"

# Example .rsync-filter file in the source directory
# - var       # exclude any path whose last part is 'var'
# - /var      # exclude any path starting with 'var' starting at the source directory
# + /var/conf # include /var/conf even though it was previously excluded

- name: Synchronize passing in extra rsync options
  synchronize:
    src: /tmp/helloworld
    dest: /var/www/helloworld
    rsync_opts:
      - "--no-motd"
      - "--exclude=.git"

# Hardlink files if they didn't change
- name: Use hardlinks when synchronizing filesystems
  synchronize:
    src: /tmp/path_a/foo.txt
    dest: /tmp/path_b/foo.txt
    link_dest: /tmp/path_a/

Status

This module is flagged as preview which means that it is not guaranteed to have a backwards compatible interface.

Support

For more information about Red Hat’s support of this module, please refer to this Knowledge Base article

Author

  • Timothy Appnel (@tima)

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