# Ansible INI file module

If you don't read docs, one day you'll realize that your an idiot as i am|was.

A few days back, I've realized that i was using wrong all Ansible modules power since i started with it. What happened?

Most of the time i use Ansible is related to OpenStack configuration jobs. Almost, all OpenStack projects use INI formatted files for their configuration files. When i started using Ansible, I searched on Google how to configure any kind of file with Ansible modules. Almost all blogs/forums that i saw, talked about lineinfile module. So i used these guidelines on my next few months, now i realize that i was using in the wrong way Ansible modules.

Ansible have a module called ini\_file, you change values inside INI formatted files in a easy way , you don't need to use complicated regular expressions to change a value in a file.

Here you have ini\_file module usage docs: <http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/ini_file_module.html>

We are going to change Neutron user password in his dump config file, so we create a simple task on which we can see how ini\_file module can be used.

```
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
  - name: Change neutron user password
    ini_file:
      dest: ~/neutron.conf
      section: keystone_authtoken
      option: password
      value: 12345
```

Once the task has been applied, we can see how the values are applied in a proper ini style.

```
cat neutron.conf
[keystone_authtoken]
password = 12345
```

How many times you need to make a change in an INI formatted configuration file with Ansible and used lineinfile module? If the answer is many times, it's OK, you are a dump like me.

Regards, Eduardo Gonzalez


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://blog.egonzalez.org/devsecops/index/ansible-ini-file-module.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.