Use the ansible.builtin.file module to touch a file on managed hosts. This works like the touch command, creating an empty file if it does not exist, and updating its modification time if it does exist. In this example, in addition to touching the file, Ansible ensures that the owning user, group, and permissions of the file are set to specific values.

- name: Touch a file and set permissions
  ansible.builtin.file:
    path: /path/to/file
    owner: user1
    group: group1
    mode: 0640
    state: touch

Example outcome:

[user@host ~]$ ls -l file
-rw-r-----.  user1 group1 0 Nov 25 08:00 file

You can use the ansible.builtin.file module to ensure that a new or existing file has the correct permissions or SELinux type as well.

For example, the following file has retained the default SELinux context relative to a user's home directory, which is not the desired context.

[user@host ~]$ ls -Z samba_file
-rw-r--r--.  owner group unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0 samba_file

The following task ensures that the SELinux context type attribute of the samba_file file is the desired samba_share_t type. This behavior is similar to the Linux chcon command.

- name: SELinux type is set to samba_share_t
  ansible.builtin.file:
    path: /path/to/samba_file
    setype: samba_share_t

Example outcome:

[user@host ~]$ ls -Z samba_file
-rw-r--r--.  owner group unconfined_u:object_r:samba_share_t:s0 samba_file

File attribute parameters are available in multiple file management modules. Use the ansible-navigator doc command for additional information, providing the ansible.builtin.file or ansible.builtin.copy module as an argument.

In this example, the ansible.builtin.copy module is used to copy a file located in the Ansible working directory on the control node to selected managed hosts.

By default, this module assumes that force: yes is set. That forces the module to overwrite the remote file if it exists but has different contents to the file being copied. If force: no is set, then it only copies the file to the managed host if it does not already exist.

- name: Copy a file to managed hosts
  ansible.builtin.copy:
    src: file
    dest: /path/to/file

To retrieve files from managed hosts use the ansible.builtin.fetch module. This could be used to retrieve a file such as an SSH public key from a reference system before distributing it to other managed hosts.

- name: Retrieve SSH key from reference host
  ansible.builtin.fetch:
    src: "/home/{{ user }}/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
    dest: "files/keys/{{ user }}.pub"

To ensure a specific single line of text exists in an existing file, use the lineinfile module:

- name: Add a line of text to a file
  ansible.builtin.lineinfile:
    path: /path/to/file
    line: 'Add this line to the file'
    state: present

To add a block of text to an existing file, use the ansible.builtin.blockinfile module:

- name: Add additional lines to a file
  ansible.builtin.blockinfile:
    path: /path/to/file
    block: |
      First line in the additional block of text
      Second line in the additional block of text
    state: present

# BEGIN ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK
First line in the additional block of text
Second line in the additional block of text
# END ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK

A basic example to remove a file from managed hosts is to use the ansible.builtin.file module with the state: absent parameter. The state parameter is optional to many modules. You should always make your intentions clear whether you want state: present or state: absent for several reasons. Some modules support other options as well. It is possible that the default could change at some point, but perhaps most importantly, it makes it easier to understand the state the system should be in based on your task.

- name: Make sure a file does not exist on managed hosts
  ansible.builtin.file:
    dest: /path/to/file
    state: absent

The ansible.builtin.stat module retrieves facts for a file, similar to the Linux stat command. Parameters provide the functionality to retrieve file attributes, determine the checksum of a file, and more.

The ansible.builtin.stat module returns a dictionary of values containing the file status data, which allows you to refer to individual pieces of information using separate variables.

The following example registers the results of a ansible.builtin.stat module task and then prints the MD5 checksum of the file that it checked. (The more modern SHA256 algorithm is also available; MD5 is being used here for legibility.)

- name: Verify the checksum of a file
  ansible.builtin.stat:
    path: /path/to/file
    checksum_algorithm: md5
  register: result

- ansible.builtin.debug
    msg: "The checksum of the file is {{ result.stat.checksum }}"

The outcome should be similar to the following:

TASK [Get md5 checksum of a file] *****************************************
ok: [hostname]

TASK [debug] **************************************************************
ok: [hostname] => {
    "msg": "The checksum of the file is 5f76590425303022e933c43a7f2092a3"
}

Information about the values returned by the ansible.builtin.stat module are documented in ansible-navigator doc ansible.builtin.stat, or you can register a variable and display its contents to see what is available:

- name: Examine all stat output of /etc/passwd
  hosts: workstation

  tasks:
    - name: stat /etc/passwd
      ansible.builtin.stat:
        path: /etc/passwd
      register: results

    - name: Display stat results
      debug:
        var: results

The ansible.posix.synchronize module is a wrapper around the rsync tool, which simplifies common file management tasks in your playbooks. The rsync tool must be installed on both the local and remote host. By default, when using the ansible.posix.synchronize module, the "local host" is the host that the ansible.posix.synchronize task originates on (usually the control node), and the "destination host" is the host that ansible.posix.synchronize connects to.

The following example synchronizes a file located in the Ansible working directory to the managed hosts:

- name: synchronize local file to remote files
  ansible.posix.synchronize:
    src: file
    dest: /path/to/file

You can use the ansible.posix.synchronize module and its many parameters in many different ways, including synchronizing directories. Run the ansible-navigator doc ansible.posix.synchronize command for additional parameters and playbook examples.