This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org: --- Title : Ansible - Only do action if on specific distribution (Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS or RHEL) or distribution version (ubuntu precise, ubuntu trusty) Author : Remy van Elst Date : 09-11-2014 Last update : 16-12-2018 URL : https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Ansible_-_Only_if_on_specific_distribution_or_distribution_version.html Format : Markdown/HTML --- This Ansible playbook example helps you execute actions only if you are on a certain distribution. You might have a mixed environment with CentOS and Debian and when using Ansible to execute actions on nodes you don't need to run Yum on Debian, or Apt on CentOS. Some package names are different and such, so this helps you with an only if statement to select a specific distribution. As a bonus, you also get an `only_if` for specific distribution versions, like Ubuntu precise (12.04 LTS) or Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS).

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* 2018-12-16: update ansible syntax to version 2.5, use become * 2015-09-24: Added `package` module, changed only_if to when * 2014-09-11: Initial release #### Specific Distribution On a specific action, add the following `when` statement: when: ansible_distribution == 'CentOS' or ansible_distribution == 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux' This is for RHEL and Centos, the following is for Debian/Ubuntu: when: ansible_distribution == 'Debian' or ansible_distribution == 'Ubuntu' This example playbook installs `Apache2` on both Debian/Ubuntu and CentOS. This example used apache because the name package name is different on the two distributions. --- - hosts: example become: true user: remy connection: ssh tasks: - name: Install apache apt: name: {{ item }} state: latest with_items: - apache2 when: ansible_distribution == 'Debian' or ansible_distribution == 'Ubuntu' - name: Install httpd yum: name: {{ item }} state: latest with_items: - httpd when: ansible_distribution == 'CentOS' or ansible_distribution == 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux' - name: restart apache service: name: apache2 state: started enabled: yes when: ansible_distribution == 'Debian' or ansible_distribution == 'Ubuntu' - name: restart httpd service: name: httpd state: started enabled: yes when: ansible_distribution == 'CentOS' or ansible_distribution == 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux' #### Specific Distribution Version You might also need to do different actions based on distribution version, because some things are available on CentOS 6 but not on 5, or on Ubuntu Lucid you need to install some backported packages and not on Ubuntu Precise. For those situations, you can use either the `{{ ansible_distribution_version }` or `{{ ansible_distribution_release }}` variable. See some example output from `ansible all -m setup -a "filter=ansible_distribution*"`: "ansible_distribution": "CentOS", "ansible_distribution_release": "Final", "ansible_distribution_version": "5.9" "ansible_distribution": "CentOS", "ansible_distribution_release": "Final", "ansible_distribution_version": "6.4" "ansible_distribution": "Ubuntu", "ansible_distribution_release": "lucid", "ansible_distribution_version": "10.04" "ansible_distribution": "Ubuntu", "ansible_distribution_release": "precise", "ansible_distribution_version": "12.04" "ansible_distribution": "Debian", "ansible_distribution_release": "wheezy", "ansible_distribution_version": "7" Using these, you can filter the output by changing the `when` statement in your ansible playbook: when: ansible_distribution == 'CentOS' and ansible_distribution_version == '6.4' when: ansible_distribution == 'Ubuntu' and ansible_distribution_release == 'precise' when: ansible_distribution == 'Debian' and ansible_distribution_version == '7' when: ansible_os_family == "RedHat" and ansible_lsb.major_release|int >= 5 #### Package module (2015 short update) As my former colleague Stein pointed me to, Ansible 2.0 has been released and it features the `package` module. This is a generic module that installs, upgrade and removes packages using the underlying OS package manager. This module actually calls the pertinent package modules for each system (apt, yum, etc). This means that if you use this article because you want a package install on Debian and CentOS, you can now just do the following: - name: install (or upgrade to) the latest version of htop package: name: htop state: latest If a package has different names on different distributions, like Apache (apache2 on ubuntu, httpd on CentOS) you still need to use a when statement. Read more about the package module on [the ansible Docs website][2]. [1]: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212 [2]: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/package_module.html --- License: All the text on this website is free as in freedom unless stated otherwise. 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