File Manipulation with Ansible

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File Manipulation with Ansible

A common theme in everyday systems administration is the need to work with system files. It follows that any good configuration management or automation engine must be able to do the same. This exercise challenges students to use Ansible to execute varying tasks on remote systems involving file manipulation.

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Lab Info

Level

Intermediate

Last updated

Jul 10, 2025

Duration

1h 0m

Challenge

Become `ansible` user and then download http://software.xyzcorp.com/enigma.tgz to `/tmp` on each host in qa_servers and verify the sha256 checksum via http://software.xyzcorp.com/enigma-checksum.txt.
Note: This URL only works correctly when accessed on the lab servers. The domain name DNS entry is overridden in /etc/hosts on each lab server. If you attempt to access it from another system, you will reach a parked domain.

On EACH of the hosts in 'qa_servers' inventory, become the ansible user:
```
sudo su - ansible
```
As the ansible user (above), run the following commands on each host in the qa-servers:
- CHECKSUM=$(curl http://software.xyzcorp.com/enigma-checksum.txt | cut -f1 -d' ')
- ansible qa-servers -m get_url -a "url=http://software.xyzcorp.com/enigma.tgz dest=/tmp/enigma.tgz checksum=sha256:$CHECKSUM"
Challenge

Extract `/tmp/enigma.tgz` to `/opt/` on all hosts in `qa_servers`.

Run ansible qa_servers -b -m unarchive -a "src=/tmp/enigma.tgz dest=/opt/ remote_src=yes".
Challenge

Update the line of text "DEPLOY_CODE" in `/opt/enigma/details.txt` to the "CODE_RED" on each server in `qa_servers`.

Run ansible qa_servers -b -m lineinfile -a "regexp=DEPLOY_CODE line=CODE_RED path=/opt/enigma/details.txt".
Challenge

Set the group ownership of the directory `/opt/enigma/secret/` and each file contained within the directory so that the group owner is `protected` for each host in `qa_servers`.

Run ansible qa_servers -b -m file -a "recurse=yes state=directory path=/opt/enigma/secret group=protected".
Challenge

Delete the file `/opt/enigma/tmp/deployment-passwords.txt` from all servers.

Run ansible all -b -m file -a "state=absent path=/opt/enigma/tmp/deployment-passwords.txt".

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