Ansible generate random string how to#
Ansible generate random string password#

The jinja random filter allows us to generate a random number which is close, but it still isn't quite right since I can only end up with a numeric value.

Ansible generate random string password#

The other method I've found was prompting for a password, but then a user is aware of what the password is, and I don't want users to be aware of that information. We have people using ansible in a heterogeneous environment, so trying to rely on either password or password_lookup simply won't work for us since I either have to run some string of LOCAL commands (problem because of people running ansible on different platforms), or they refer to a file (bad practice to pass around password files). So, some password must be generated and provided to the user module. But we have found that on our servers, without the password being initialized, the SSH key is always rejected. The password is a formality, the user should NEVER log in using the password, only an SSH key. According the documentation randomstring lookup Generates random string and your example upperfalse, numbersfalse, specialfalse I understand that you like to generate a random string of length 8 ( since that is the default value of parameter length for module randomstring) without numbers and special characters and lower case only. By definition,the lookup password generates a random password AND stores it. The 'head -c 4' in the end determines how many random letters there will be appended. The random_string module support the definition of more or other properties, which you are not using and depend on according your initial description.I am trying to have ansible automatically create a password for a user, but I want the password to be unknown. Generates a random plaintext password and stores it in a file at a given filepath. You can drop the 'date' output and just go with random letters, for example. With this approach one'll get a string with the required properties. name: Show string with 8 lowercase characters It will only be necessary to define the properties of the result set ( chars=ascii_letters,digit length=8' | lower). To do so, one can use the password lookup – retrieve or generate a random. x1b2j x1b2j To generate password with the highest entropy possible with standard Linux tools that are built into every distribution I use: This outputs all of the ASCII printable characters - from 32 (space) to 126 (tilde, ).

You can optimize it by replacing the 'fold', with other string processing tools. I believe if you set the hash of the password to the literal string '' the user will be active, but no password will ever authenticate. name: Generate a random string with 1 lower, 1 upper, 1 number and 1 special char (atleast) . It generates 10 characters random string.

For what it's worth, you can configure SSH to only authenticate via keys.

Ansible generate random string how to#

How to generate an idempotent but random string of length 8 without numbers and special characters and lower case only? Is there any way to easily create a random string that I'm missing They should ONLY be using the SSH key. In other words, just a short random string with specific properties.

Generating a random N length string is a feature that doesn't fall within the accepted definition of the filter. I understand that you like to generate a random string of length 8 ( since that is the default value of parameter length for module random_string) without numbers and special characters and lower case only. Ansible: Generating random string using Password lookup plugin While writing your automation using Ansible, sometime you require to generate random string. The random filter in Ansible is an extension of the default Jinja2 random filter, and can be used to return a random item from a sequence of items or to generate a random number based on a range. According the documentation random_string lookup – Generates random string and your example upper=false, numbers=false, special=false