htpasswd - manage user files for basic authentication

New in version 1.3.

Synopsis

  • Add and remove username/password entries in a password file using htpasswd.
  • This is used by web servers such as Apache and Nginx for basic authentication.

Requirements

The below requirements are needed on the host that executes this module.

  • passlib>=1.6

Parameters

Parameter Choices/Defaults Comments
attributes
(added in 2.3)
 Default:
None
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.

aliases: attr
create
    Choices:
  • yes ←
  • no
Used with state=present. If specified, the file will be created if it does not already exist. If set to "no", will fail if the file does not exist
crypt_scheme
    Choices:
  • apr_md5_crypt ←
  • des_crypt
  • ldap_sha1
  • plaintext
Encryption scheme to be used. As well as the four choices listed here, you can also use any other hash supported by passlib, such as md5_crypt and sha256_crypt, which are linux passwd hashes. If you do so the password file will not be compatible with Apache or Nginx
group Default:
None
Name of the group that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
mode Default:
None
Mode the file or directory should be. For those used to /usr/bin/chmod remember that modes are actually octal numbers (like 0644 or 01777). Leaving off the leading zero will likely 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).
name
required
User name to add or remove

aliases: username
owner Default:
None
Name of the user that should own the file/directory, as would be fed to chown.
password
Password associated with user.
Must be specified if user does not exist yet.
path
required
Path to the file that contains the usernames and passwords

aliases: dest, destfile
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 Default:
None
Role part of SELinux file context, _default feature works as for seuser.
setype Default:
None
Type part of SELinux file context, _default feature works as for seuser.
seuser Default:
None
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
Whether the user entry should be present or not
unsafe_writes
(added in 2.2)
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Normally this module uses atomic operations to prevent data corruption or inconsistent reads from the target files, sometimes systems are configured or just broken in ways that prevent this. One example are docker mounted files, they cannot be updated atomically and can only be done in an unsafe manner.
This boolean option allows ansible to fall back to unsafe methods of updating files for those cases in which you do not have any other choice. Be aware that this is subject to race conditions and can lead to data corruption.

Notes

Note

  • This module depends on the passlib Python library, which needs to be installed on all target systems.
  • On Debian, Ubuntu, or Fedora: install python-passlib.
  • On RHEL or CentOS: Enable EPEL, then install python-passlib.

Examples

# Add a user to a password file and ensure permissions are set
- htpasswd:
    path: /etc/nginx/passwdfile
    name: janedoe
    password: '9s36?;fyNp'
    owner: root
    group: www-data
    mode: 0640

# Remove a user from a password file
- htpasswd:
    path: /etc/apache2/passwdfile
    name: foobar
    state: absent

# Add a user to a password file suitable for use by libpam-pwdfile
- htpasswd:
    path: /etc/mail/passwords
    name: alex
    password: oedu2eGh
    crypt_scheme: md5_crypt

Status

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

Author

  • Ansible Core Team

Hint

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

© 2012–2018 Michael DeHaan
© 2018–2019 Red Hat, Inc.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.5/modules/htpasswd_module.html