Ansible Create Users from CSV

Question

I just started using Ansible. Is there a Best Practice when managing multiple users accounts with Ansible; (e.g; creating, disabling, and removing user accounts). I thought, managing accounts from a csv file would be earlier. I haven't been able to find any reference or examples.
I created the following test below. But for usability, it seems it would be easier to run this against a csv file, and not have to edit the yml file every time.

    - hosts: servers
      remote_user: root
      tasks:
        - name: adding several users
          user:
             name={{ item.name }}
             state=present
             comment={{ item.comment }}
             password=$1$*)^%$CeUUJM&v#0pQhHjqjpqX1
             update_password=on_create
             createhome=yes
             groups={{ item.groups }}
          with_items:
             - { name: 'testuser3', comment: 'testuser3', groups: 'wheel' }
             - { name: 'testuser4', comment: 'testuser4', groups: 'users' }

Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

There is a good chapter in the docs: Variable File Separation.

Define users.yml:

users:
  - name: testuser3
    comment: testuser3
    groups: wheel
  - name: testuser4
    comment: testuser4
    groups: users

And in your playbook:

- hosts: servers
  remote_user: root
  vars_files:
    - /vars/users.yml
  tasks:
    - name: adding several users
      user:
        name: "{{ item.name }}"
        state: present
        comment: "{{ item.comment }}"
        password: "$1$*)^%$CeUUJM&v#0pQhHjqjpqX1"
        update_password: on_create
        createhome: yes
        groups: "{{ item.groups }}"
      with_items: "{{ users }}"

P.S. I also changed argument syntax to YAML instead of key=value – trust me, it is more robust in complex playbooks.

And if you want to manage different user sets on different hosts, you may want to use inventory group/host variables instead of play-level variable files.

Answer 2

Since Ansible version 2.8 there is a module called read_csv.

# Example CSV file with header
#
#   name,uid,gid
#   dag,500,500
#   jeroen,501,500

# Read a CSV file and access the first item
- name: Read users from CSV file and return a list
  read_csv:
    path: users.csv
  register: users
  delegate_to: localhost

- debug:
    msg: 'User {{ users.list.1.name }} has UID {{ users.list.1.uid }} and GID {{ users.list.1.gid }}'