Ansible: copy a directory content to another directory

Question

I am trying to copy the content of dist directory to nginx directory.

- name: copy html file
  copy: src=/home/vagrant/dist/ dest=/usr/share/nginx/html/

But when I execute the playbook it throws an error:

TASK [NGINX : copy html file] **************************************************
fatal: [172.16.8.200]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "failed": true, "msg": "attempted to take checksum of directory:/home/vagrant/dist/"}

How can I copy a directory that has another directory and a file inside?

Solution 1

Resolved answer: To copy a directory's content to another directory I use the next:

- name: copy consul_ui files
  command: cp -r /home/{{ user }}/dist/{{ item }} /usr/share/nginx/html
  with_items:
   - "index.html"
   - "static/"

It copies both items to the other directory. In the example, one of the items is a directory and the other is not. It works perfectly.

Solution 2

You could use the synchronize module. The example from the documentation:

# Synchronize two directories on one remote host.
- synchronize:
    src: /first/absolute/path
    dest: /second/absolute/path
  delegate_to: "{{ inventory_hostname }}"

This has the added benefit that it will be more efficient for large/many files.

Solution 3

EDIT: This solution worked when the question was posted. Later Ansible deprecated recursive copying with remote_src

Ansible Copy module by default copies files/dirs from control machine to remote machine. If you want to copy files/dirs in remote machine and if you have Ansible 2.0, set remote_src to yes

- name: copy html file
  copy: src=/home/vagrant/dist/ dest=/usr/share/nginx/html/ remote_src=yes directory_mode=yes

Solution 4

To copy a directory's content to another directory you CAN use ansibles copy module:

- name: Copy content of directory 'files'
  copy:
    src: files/    # note the '/' <-- !!!
    dest: /tmp/files/

From the docs about the src parameter:

If (src!) path is a directory, it is copied recursively...
... if path ends with "/", only inside contents of that directory are copied to destination.
... if it does not end with "/", the directory itself with all contents is copied.

Solution 5

The simplest solution I've found to copy the contents of a folder without copying the folder itself is to use the following:

- name: Move directory contents
  command: cp -r /<source_path>/. /<dest_path>/

This resolves @surfer190's follow-up question:

Hmmm what if you want to copy the entire contents? I noticed that * doesn't work – surfer190 Jul 23 '16 at 7:29

* is a shell glob, in that it relies on your shell to enumerate all the files within the folder before running cp, while the . directly instructs cp to get the directory contents (see https://askubuntu.com/questions/86822/how-can-i-copy-the-contents-of-a-folder-to-another-folder-in-a-different-directo)

View more solutions

Comments

[Bruce P]

From the Ansible docs for the copy module: "The copy module copies a file on the local box to remote locations". You say that there are two files in /home/vagrant/dist. Are those located on the host you are running Ansible from, or on the host with the IP 172.16.8.200?

[Asier Gomez]

Hello @BruceP yes the directory /home/vagrant/dist is in the remote machine, as #helloV says I have put remote_src=yes but the problem is that "copy" doesn't work with directorys, and inside the directory "dist" there is a file and a directory. How can I copy the file and the directory? Thanks

[holms]

@Asier it does - directory_mode=yes

[Asier Gomez]

@holms Yes I try my code but it doesn't copy if there are directories with files inside another directory.

[Asier Gomez]

Inside "/home/vagrant/dist/" directory there is a file and another directory, I can copy the file, but if I copy bouth, it throws the next error: 'attempted to take checksum of directory:' what could it be? I think the copy only works with files and not with directorys. @helloV

[tread]

Hmmm what if you want to copy the entire contents? I notied that * doesn't work

[DMCoding]

You can prevent the find command showing as 'changed' with changed_when: false

[Mircea Vutcovici]

"Currently remote_src does not support recursive copying" - See: docs.ansible.com/ansible/copy_module.html

[agmezr]

Is there a way to use the copy module but specify that the copy is local to local? When I use copy module insted of command: cp it takes an absurd amount of time

[Asier Gomez]

See the next post: stackoverflow.com/questions/40955440/… I'm not sure if it is what you are asking @agmezr

[agmezr]

@AsierGomez after searching a lot I decided to use shell: 'cp -r {{ source_dir }}/{{ item }} {{ deploy_dir }}' it's a lot faster that using copy (maybe i'm doing something wrong)

[techraf]

This is nonsensical. You specifically wrote "to recursively copy the contents", but your tasks flatten the structure and copy all files from subdirectories to a single directory.

[holms]

I'd say you only need to use synchronize when you want to move huge amount of files from/to remote location, because it's using rsync, what's the point to use rsync locally? maybe there's, I don't know :)

[pkaramol]

Is inventory_hostname a built in ansible variable or we set it somehow?

[Aidan Feldman]

@pkaramol Built in.

[Younes]

It is planed that copy module will support recursive copy with remote_src: yes in Ansible 2.8 (see Allow copy module to work with recursive and remote_src).

[Younes]

It is planed that copy module will support recursive copy with remote_src: yes in Ansible 2.8 (see Allow copy module to work with recursive and remote_src).

[finnmglas]

Please do not answer old questions (here:4 years ago) unless you have something important to add that the other answers fail at / are inefficient with. Your answer seems to be a duplicate of all the other ones

[cjnash]

+1 This should be the correct answer! No command, no creating a register of files to copy... Just using the copy module how it is intended.

[andymel]

It is possible with ansibles copy module, have a look at my answer

[andymel]

At least now it is possible with ansibles copy module, have a look at my answer

[GreenLake4964]

I am using Ansible 2.4.4, the "remote_src" attribute doesn't support recursive copying. The "directory_mode" attribute is probably for copying from LOCAL to REMOTE recursively.