Ansible Ad-Hoc Commands

Ad-hoc commands

Update and upgrade servers

ansible all -m shell -a 'apt update' --private-key ~/.ssh/ansible 
ansible -all -m shell -a "apt upgrade -y" --private-key ~/.ssh/ansible 

Ansible [target] -m [module] -a [module-options]

• Ping localhost

# ansible localhost –m ping

• Creating a file on all remote clients

# ansible all –m file –a “path=/home/iafzal/adhoc1 state=touch mode=700”

• Deleting a file on all remote clients

# ansible all –m file –a “path=/home/iafzal/adhoc1 state=absent”

• Copying a file to remote clients

# ansible all –m copy –a “src=/tmp/adhoc2 dest=/home/iafzal/adhoc2”

• Installing package (telnet and httpd-manual)

# ansible all –m yum –a “name=telnet state=present”
# ansible all –m yum –a “name=httpd-manual state=present”. 

• Remove package

ansible all -m apt -a "name=apache2 state=absent" --private-key ~/.ssh/ansible 

• Starting httpd package service

# ansible all –m service –a “name=httpd state=started”

• Start httpd and enable at boot time

# ansible all –m service –a “name=httpd state=started enabled=yes”

• Checking httpd service status on remote client

# ansible all –m shell -a “systemctl status httpd”

• Remove httpd package

# ansible all –m yum –a “name=httpd state=absent”

• OR

# ansible all –m shell -a “yum remove httpd”.

• Creating a user on remote clients

# ansible all –m user –a “name=jsmith home=/home/jsmith shell=/bin/bash state=present”

• To add a user to a different group

# ansible all –m user –a “name=jsmith group=iafzal”

• Deleting a user on remote clients

# ansible all –m user –a “name=jsmith home=/home/jsmith shell=/bin/bash state=absent”

OR

# ansible all –m shell –a “userdel jsmith”

• Getting system information from remote clients

# ansible all –m setup

• You can run commands on the remote host without a shell module e.g. reboot client1

# ansible client1 –a “/sbin/reboot”