Ansible linefile module's attribute line is not adding environmental variable on server

Question

Hi I am having a task which is as follows

   - name: Replace log directory in configuration
      lineinfile:
        path: $HOME/amsible_test/test.txt
        regexp: '^dataDir='
        line: 'dataDir=$HOME/.zookeeper_log'

it's running fine , But issue is that this is writing line as dataDir=$HOME/.zookeeper_log

but as per my understanding it should parse $HOME as /home/username as per ubuntu 16.04 .It should write dataDir=/home/username/.zookeeper.log but not doing as expected.

any suggestion what i am doing wrong . I tried many alternate for string parsing purpose but no luck.

Thanks in advance

Possible duplicate of [How to get an arbitrary remote user's home directory in Ansible?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33343215/how-to-get-an-arbitrary-remote-users-home-directory-in-ansible) — nwinkler, Jan 29 '19 at 14:49
Not even this one? https://stackoverflow.com/a/43778560/1228454 — nwinkler, Jan 29 '19 at 14:58
@nwinkler My ansible version is ansible 2.7.2 .this syntax is also not working for me — Pankaj Cheema, Jan 29 '19 at 15:03
Ansible does *not* do shell variable substitution in module's arguments. That's it. — Konstantin Suvorov, Jan 29 '19 at 15:12

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 29 '19 at 15:12

1

Hi this worked for me ..

- name: test connection
  shell: echo $HOME
  register: user_home

- name: Replace log directory in configuration

  lineinfile:
    path: $HOME/amsible_test/test.txt
    regexp: '^dataDir='
    line: 'dataDir={{user_home.stdout}}/.zookeeper_log'

answered Jan 29 '19 at 15:12

Pankaj Cheema

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Its also possible do something like this: `line: 'dataDir={{ lookup('env','HOME') }}/.zookeeper_log'`... Doing that, you wont need the first shell task. – Kelson Silva Jan 29 '19 at 19:32
The lookup call is done on the control machine, not on the remote machine, that‘s why you can‘t use lookup in this case... – nwinkler Jan 31 '19 at 07:31
Agree with @nwinkler – Pankaj Cheema Jan 31 '19 at 08:05

Ansible linefile module's attribute line is not adding environmental variable on server

1 Answers1