How to create an empty file with Ansible?

Question

What is the easiest way to create an empty file using Ansible? I know I can save an empty file into the files directory and then copy it to the remote host, but I f

Answer 1

A combination of two answers, with a twist. The code will be detected as changed, when the file is created or the permission updated.

- name: Touch again the same file, but dont change times this makes the task idempotent
  file:
    path: /etc/foo.conf
    state: touch
    mode: 0644
    modification_time: preserve
    access_time: preserve
  changed_when: >
    p.diff.before.state == "absent" or
    p.diff.before.mode|default("0644") != "0644"

and a version that also corrects the owner and group and detects it as changed when it does correct these:

- name: Touch again the same file, but dont change times this makes the task idempotent
  file:
    path: /etc/foo.conf
    state: touch
    state: touch
    mode: 0644
    owner: root
    group: root
    modification_time: preserve
    access_time: preserve
  register: p
  changed_when: >
    p.diff.before.state == "absent" or
    p.diff.before.mode|default("0644") != "0644" or
    p.diff.before.owner|default(0) != 0 or
    p.diff.before.group|default(0) != 0

Answer 2

file module provide way to touch file without modifying its time.

- name: Touch again the same file, but dont change times this makes the task idempotent
  file:
    path: /etc/foo.conf
    state: touch
    mode: u+rw,g-wx,o-rwx
    modification_time: preserve
    access_time: preserve

Reference: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/modules/file_module.html

Answer 3

In order to create a file in the remote machine with the ad-hoc command

ansible client -m file -a"dest=/tmp/file state=touch"

Please correct me if I am wrong

Answer 4

file: path=/etc/nologin state=touch

Full equivalent of touch (new in 1.4+) - use stat if you don't want to change file timestamp.

Answer 5

Something like this (using the stat module first to gather data about it and then filtering using a conditional) should work:

- stat: path=/etc/nologin
  register: p

- name: create fake 'nologin' shell
  file: path=/etc/nologin state=touch owner=root group=sys mode=0555
  when: p.stat.exists is defined and not p.stat.exists

You might alternatively be able to leverage the changed_when functionality.

Answer 6

Another option, using the command module:

- name: Create file
  command: touch /path/to/file
  args:
    creates: /path/to/file

The 'creates' argument ensures that this action is not performed if the file exists.