ansible.builtin.apt – Manages apt-packages

Note

This module is part of ansible-base and included in all Ansible installations. In most cases, you can use the short module name apt even without specifying the collections: keyword. Despite that, we recommend you use the FQCN for easy linking to the module documentation and to avoid conflicting with other collections that may have the same module name.

New in version 0.0.2: of ansible.builtin

Synopsis
Requirements
Parameters
Notes
Examples
Return Values

Synopsis

Manages apt packages (such as for Debian/Ubuntu).

Requirements

The below requirements are needed on the host that executes this module.

python-apt (python 2)
python3-apt (python 3)
aptitude (before 2.4)

Parameters

Parameter	Choices/Defaults	Comments
allow_unauthenticated boolean added in 2.1 of ansible.builtin	no ← yes	Ignore if packages cannot be authenticated. This is useful for bootstrapping environments that manage their own apt-key setup. `allow_unauthenticated` is only supported with state: install/present
autoclean boolean added in 2.4 of ansible.builtin	no ← yes	If `yes`, cleans the local repository of retrieved package files that can no longer be downloaded.
autoremove boolean added in 2.1 of ansible.builtin	no ← yes	If `yes`, remove unused dependency packages for all module states except build-dep. It can also be used as the only option. Previous to version 2.4, autoclean was also an alias for autoremove, now it is its own separate command. See documentation for further information.
cache_valid_time string	Default: 0	Update the apt cache if its older than the cache_valid_time. This option is set in seconds. As of Ansible 2.4, if explicitly set, this sets update_cache=yes.
deb string added in 1.6 of ansible.builtin		Path to a .deb package on the remote machine. If :// in the path, ansible will attempt to download deb before installing. (Version added 2.1) Requires the `xz-utils` package to extract the control file of the deb package to install.
default_release string		Corresponds to the `-t` option for apt and sets pin priorities
dpkg_options string	Default: "force-confdef,force-confold"	Add dpkg options to apt command. Defaults to '-o "Dpkg::Options::=--force-confdef" -o "Dpkg::Options::=--force-confold"' Options should be supplied as comma separated list
force boolean	no ← yes	Corresponds to the `--force-yes` to apt-get and implies `allow_unauthenticated: yes` This option will disable checking both the packages' signatures and the certificates of the web servers they are downloaded from. This option is not the equivalent of passing the `-f` flag to apt-get on the command line This is a destructive operation with the potential to destroy your system, and it should almost never be used.** Please also see `man apt-get` for more information.
force_apt_get boolean added in 2.4 of ansible.builtin	no ← yes	Force usage of apt-get instead of aptitude
install_recommends boolean	no yes	Corresponds to the `--no-install-recommends` option for apt. `yes` installs recommended packages. `no` does not install recommended packages. By default, Ansible will use the same defaults as the operating system. Suggested packages are never installed. aliases: install-recommends
name list / elements=string		A list of package names, like `foo`, or package specifier with version, like `foo=1.0`. Name wildcards (fnmatch) like `apt` and version wildcards like `foo=1.0` are also supported. aliases: package, pkg
only_upgrade boolean added in 2.1 of ansible.builtin	no ← yes	Only upgrade a package if it is already installed.
policy_rc_d integer added in 2.8 of ansible.builtin		Force the exit code of /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d. For example, if policy_rc_d=101 the installed package will not trigger a service start. If /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d already exist, it is backed up and restored after the package installation. If `null`, the /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d isn't created/changed.
purge boolean	no ← yes	Will force purging of configuration files if the module state is set to absent.
state string	absent build-dep latest present ← fixed	Indicates the desired package state. `latest` ensures that the latest version is installed. `build-dep` ensures the package build dependencies are installed. `fixed` attempt to correct a system with broken dependencies in place.
update_cache boolean	no yes	Run the equivalent of `apt-get update` before the operation. Can be run as part of the package installation or as a separate step. Default is not to update the cache.
update_cache_retries integer added in 2.10 of ansible.builtin	Default: 5	Amount of retries if the cache update fails. Also see update_cache_retry_max_delay.
update_cache_retry_max_delay integer added in 2.10 of ansible.builtin	Default: 12	Use an exponential backoff delay for each retry (see update_cache_retries) up to this max delay in seconds.
upgrade string added in 1.1 of ansible.builtin	dist full no ← safe yes	If yes or safe, performs an aptitude safe-upgrade. If full, performs an aptitude full-upgrade. If dist, performs an apt-get dist-upgrade. Note: This does not upgrade a specific package, use state=latest for that. Note: Since 2.4, apt-get is used as a fall-back if aptitude is not present.

Notes

Note

Three of the upgrade modes (full, safe and its alias yes) required aptitude up to 2.3, since 2.4 apt-get is used as a fall-back.
In most cases, packages installed with apt will start newly installed services by default. Most distributions have mechanisms to avoid this. For example when installing Postgresql-9.5 in Debian 9, creating an excutable shell script (/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d) that throws a return code of 101 will stop Postgresql 9.5 starting up after install. Remove the file or remove its execute permission afterwards.
The apt-get commandline supports implicit regex matches here but we do not because it can let typos through easier (If you typo foo as fo apt-get would install packages that have “fo” in their name with a warning and a prompt for the user. Since we don’t have warnings and prompts before installing we disallow this.Use an explicit fnmatch pattern if you want wildcarding)
When used with a loop: each package will be processed individually, it is much more efficient to pass the list directly to the name option.

Examples

- name: Install apache httpd  (state=present is optional)
  apt:
    name: apache2
    state: present

- name: Update repositories cache and install "foo" package
  apt:
    name: foo
    update_cache: yes

- name: Remove "foo" package
  apt:
    name: foo
    state: absent

- name: Install the package "foo"
  apt:
    name: foo

- name: Install a list of packages
  apt:
    pkg:
    - foo
    - foo-tools

- name: Install the version '1.00' of package "foo"
  apt:
    name: foo=1.00

- name: Update the repository cache and update package "nginx" to latest version using default release squeeze-backport
  apt:
    name: nginx
    state: latest
    default_release: squeeze-backports
    update_cache: yes

- name: Install latest version of "openjdk-6-jdk" ignoring "install-recommends"
  apt:
    name: openjdk-6-jdk
    state: latest
    install_recommends: no

- name: Update all packages to their latest version
  apt:
    name: "*"
    state: latest

- name: Upgrade the OS (apt-get dist-upgrade)
  apt:
    upgrade: dist

- name: Run the equivalent of "apt-get update" as a separate step
  apt:
    update_cache: yes

- name: Only run "update_cache=yes" if the last one is more than 3600 seconds ago
  apt:
    update_cache: yes
    cache_valid_time: 3600

- name: Pass options to dpkg on run
  apt:
    upgrade: dist
    update_cache: yes
    dpkg_options: 'force-confold,force-confdef'

- name: Install a .deb package
  apt:
    deb: /tmp/mypackage.deb

- name: Install the build dependencies for package "foo"
  apt:
    pkg: foo
    state: build-dep

- name: Install a .deb package from the internet
  apt:
    deb: https://example.com/python-ppq_0.1-1_all.deb

- name: Remove useless packages from the cache
  apt:
    autoclean: yes

- name: Remove dependencies that are no longer required
  apt:
    autoremove: yes

# Sometimes apt tasks fail because apt is locked by an autoupdate or by a race condition on a thread.
# To check for a lock file before executing, and keep trying until the lock file is released:
- name: Install packages only when the apt process is not locked
  apt:
    name: foo
    state: present
  register: apt_action
  retries: 100
  until: apt_action is success or ('Failed to lock apt for exclusive operation' not in apt_action.msg and '/var/lib/dpkg/lock' not in apt_action.msg)

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key	Returned	Description
cache_update_time integer	success, in some cases	time of the last cache update (0 if unknown) Sample: 1425828348000
cache_updated boolean	success, in some cases	if the cache was updated or not Sample: True
stderr string	success, when needed	error output from apt Sample: AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to ...
stdout string	success, when needed	output from apt Sample: Reading package lists... Building dependency tree... Reading state information... The following extra packages will be installed: apache2-bin ...

Authors

Matthew Williams (@mgwilliams)

© 2012–2018 Michael DeHaan
© 2018–2019 Red Hat, Inc.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.10/collections/ansible/builtin/apt_module.html