Ansible copying ssh public key from one account to

Question

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• Ansible - Could not use lookup file module for a file under /etc/ 1 answer

I am facing a problem of copying ssh key between two accounts on a remote server. I have remote server called "rmt", on rmt I have one account called "clado" i want to copy the /root/.ssh/authorized_keys (on rmt) to /home/clado/.ssh/authorized_keys (on rmt) using Ansible.

I got this sample code:

- name: Set authorized key in alternate location
  authorized_key:
    user: charlie
    state: present
    key: "{{ lookup('file', '/home/charlie/.ssh/id_rsa.pub') }}"

But it is using the local /home/charlie/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.

Answer 1

if you are picking it from /root/.ssh/authorized than replace home /charlie/.ssh/id_rsa.pub from /root/.ssh/authorized_keys

and do with it with sudo . Use become: true argument in your task.

Answer 2

But it is using the local('/home/charlie/.ssh/id_rsa.pub').

All lookup plugins work locally on the Ansible control machine.

You can fetch the contents of a remote file with slurp module, for example:

- name: Fetch authorized key from alternate location
  slurp:
    src: /home/other_user/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
  register: slurped_key_b64

- name: Ensure the fetched key is set for charlie
  authorized_key:
    user: charlie
    state: present
    key: "{{ slurped_key_b64.content | b64decode }}"

^{Customise the details, because your description and your code don't match.}

But generally this flow doesn't make much sense from system management point of view. Assign the key from the control machine.