user - Manage user accounts¶

Synopsis
Parameters
Notes
Examples
Status
- Support
- Author

Synopsis ¶

Manage user accounts and user attributes.
For Windows targets, use the win_user module instead.

Parameters ¶

Parameter	Choices/Defaults	Comments
append	Choices: no ← yes	If `yes`, will only add groups, not set them to just the list in groups.
comment		Optionally sets the description (aka GECOS) of user account.
create_home	Choices: no yes ←	Unless set to `no`, a home directory will be made for the user when the account is created or if the home directory does not exist. Changed from `createhome` to `create_home` in version 2.5. aliases: createhome
expires (added in 1.9)		An expiry time for the user in epoch, it will be ignored on platforms that do not support this. Currently supported on Linux, FreeBSD, and DragonFlyBSD.
force	Choices: no ← yes	When used with `state=absent`, behavior is as with `userdel --force`.
generate_ssh_key	Choices: no ← yes	Whether to generate a SSH key for the user in question. This will not overwrite an existing SSH key.
group		Optionally sets the user's primary group (takes a group name).
groups		Puts the user in list of groups. When set to the empty string ('groups='), the user is removed from all groups except the primary group. Before version 2.3, the only input format allowed was a 'comma separated string', now it should be able to accept YAML lists also.
home		Optionally set the user's home directory.
local (added in 2.4)	Choices: no ← yes	Forces the use of "local" command alternatives on platforms that implement it. This is useful in environments that use centralized authentification when you want to manipulate the local users. I.E. it uses `luseradd` instead of `useradd`. This requires that these commands exist on the targeted host, otherwise it will be a fatal error.
login_class		Optionally sets the user's login class for FreeBSD, DragonFlyBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD systems.
move_home	Choices: no ← yes	If set to `yes` when used with `home=`, attempt to move the user's home directory to the specified directory if it isn't there already.
name required		Name of the user to create, remove or modify. aliases: user
non_unique	Choices: no ← yes	Optionally when used with the -u option, this option allows to change the user ID to a non-unique value.
password		Optionally set the user's password to this crypted value. On Darwin/OS X systems, this value has to be cleartext. Beware of security issues. See http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/faq.html#how-do-i-generate-crypted-passwords-for-the-user-module for details on various ways to generate these password values.
remove	Choices: no ← yes	When used with `state=absent`, behavior is as with `userdel --remove`.
seuser (added in 2.1)		Optionally sets the seuser type (user_u) on selinux enabled systems.
shell		Optionally set the user's shell. On Mac OS X, before version 2.5, the default shell for non-system users was /usr/bin/false. Since 2.5, the default shell for non-system users on Mac OS X is /bin/bash.
skeleton (added in 2.0)		Optionally set a home skeleton directory. Requires create_home option!
ssh_key_bits	Default: default set by ssh-keygen	Optionally specify number of bits in SSH key to create.
ssh_key_comment	Default: ansible-generated on $HOSTNAME	Optionally define the comment for the SSH key.
ssh_key_file	Default: .ssh/id_rsa	Optionally specify the SSH key filename. If this is a relative filename then it will be relative to the user's home directory.
ssh_key_passphrase		Set a passphrase for the SSH key. If no passphrase is provided, the SSH key will default to having no passphrase.
ssh_key_type	Default: rsa	Optionally specify the type of SSH key to generate. Available SSH key types will depend on implementation present on target host.
state	Choices: absent present ←	Whether the account should exist or not, taking action if the state is different from what is stated.
system	Choices: no ← yes	When creating an account, setting this to `yes` makes the user a system account. This setting cannot be changed on existing users.
uid		Optionally sets the UID of the user.
update_password (added in 1.3)	Choices: always ← on_create	`always` will update passwords if they differ. `on_create` will only set the password for newly created users.

Notes ¶

Note

There are specific requirements per platform on user management utilities. However they generally come pre-installed with the system and Ansible will require they are present at runtime. If they are not, a descriptive error message will be shown.
For Windows targets, use the win_user module instead.

Examples ¶

- name: Add the user 'johnd' with a specific uid and a primary group of 'admin'
  user:
    name: johnd
    comment: John Doe
    uid: 1040
    group: admin

- name: Add the user 'james' with a bash shell, appending the group 'admins' and 'developers' to the user's groups
  user:
    name: james
    shell: /bin/bash
    groups: admins,developers
    append: yes

- name: Remove the user 'johnd'
  user:
    name: johnd
    state: absent
    remove: yes

- name: Create a 2048-bit SSH key for user jsmith in ~jsmith/.ssh/id_rsa
  user:
    name: jsmith
    generate_ssh_key: yes
    ssh_key_bits: 2048
    ssh_key_file: .ssh/id_rsa

- name: Added a consultant whose account you want to expire
  user:
    name: james18
    shell: /bin/zsh
    groups: developers
    expires: 1422403387

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.

Support ¶

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

Author ¶

Stephen Fromm (@sfromm)

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user - Manage user accounts¶

Synopsis¶

Parameters¶

Notes¶

Examples¶

Status¶

Support¶

Author¶