Adding a user to an additional group using ansible

Question

How can I add a user to additional groups with Ansible? For example, I would like to add a user to the sudo group without replacing the user's existing set of groups.

Answer 1

If {{ user }} already exists in the system, you should use the following to just add it to a group:

- name: adding existing user '{{ user }}' to group sudo
  user:
    name: '{{ user }}'
    groups: sudo
    append: yes

To add it to a set of groups, you can use a comma separated list, for example groups: admin,sudo.

Just beware that if you omit append: yes, your user will be removed from all other groups, according to the usermod man page. That would useful if you want to use a specific list of groups a user should belong to.

Answer 2

According to the User module you can use this:

- name: Adding user {{ user }}  
  user: name={{ user }}
        group={{ user }}
        shell=/bin/bash
        password=${password}
        groups=sudo
        append=yes

You can just add the groups=groupname and append=yes to add them to an existing user when you're creating them

Answer 3

Please note that {{ user }} was changed to {{ ansible_user }} in recent Ansible versions (https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/c600ab81ee/lib/ansible/playbook/play_context.py#L46-L55). Alternatively, you can also use ansible_ssh_user - it's the same. So, the updated code from admirabilis looks like:

- name: adding existing user "{{ ansible_user }}" to group sudo
  user:
    name: "{{ ansible_user }}"
    groups: sudo
    append: yes
  become: yes

More fixes:

• Use double quotes so the variable expands
• Add become: yes since it needs administrative privileges to change the groups file