ansible.builtin.raw module – Executes a low-down and dirty command

Note

This module is part of ansible-core and included in all Ansible installations. In most cases, you can use the short module name raw even without specifying the collections keyword. However, we recommend you use the Fully Qualified Collection Name (FQCN) ansible.builtin.raw for easy linking to the module documentation and to avoid conflicting with other collections that may have the same module name.

Synopsis

  • Executes a low-down and dirty SSH command, not going through the module subsystem.
  • This is useful and should only be done in a few cases. A common case is installing python on a system without python installed by default. Another is speaking to any devices such as routers that do not have any Python installed. In any other case, using the ansible.builtin.shell or ansible.builtin.command module is much more appropriate.
  • Arguments given to raw are run directly through the configured remote shell.
  • Standard output, error output and return code are returned when available.
  • There is no change handler support for this module.
  • This module does not require python on the remote system, much like the ansible.builtin.script module.
  • This module is also supported for Windows targets.
  • If the command returns non UTF-8 data, it must be encoded to avoid issues. One option is to pipe the output through base64.

Note

This module has a corresponding action plugin.

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

executable

string

Change the shell used to execute the command. Should be an absolute path to the executable.

When using privilege escalation (become) a default shell will be assigned if one is not provided as privilege escalation requires a shell.

free_form

string / required

The raw module takes a free form command to run.

There is no parameter actually named ‘free form’; see the examples!

Attributes

Attribute

Support

Description

check_mode

Support: none

Can run in check_mode and return changed status prediction without modifying target, if not supported the action will be skipped.

diff_mode

Support: none

Will return details on what has changed (or possibly needs changing in check_mode), when in diff mode

platform

Platforms: all

This action is one of the few that requires no Python on the remote as it passes the command directly into the connection string

Target OS/families that can be operated against

raw

Support: full

Indicates if an action takes a ‘raw’ or ‘free form’ string as an option and has it’s own special parsing of it

Notes

Note

  • If using raw from a playbook, you may need to disable fact gathering using gather_facts: no if you’re using raw to bootstrap python onto the machine.
  • If you want to execute a command securely and predictably, it may be better to use the ansible.builtin.command or ansible.builtin.shell modules instead.
  • The environment keyword does not work with raw normally, it requires a shell which means it only works if executable is set or using the module with privilege escalation (become).

See Also

See also

ansible.builtin.command

Execute commands on targets.

ansible.builtin.shell

Execute shell commands on targets.

ansible.windows.win_command

Executes a command on a remote Windows node.

ansible.windows.win_shell

Execute shell commands on target hosts.

Examples

- name: Bootstrap a host without python2 installed
  ansible.builtin.raw: dnf install -y python2 python2-dnf libselinux-python

- name: Run a command that uses non-posix shell-isms (in this example /bin/sh doesn't handle redirection and wildcards together but bash does)
  ansible.builtin.raw: cat < /tmp/*txt
  args:
    executable: /bin/bash

- name: Safely use templated variables. Always use quote filter to avoid injection issues.
  ansible.builtin.raw: "{{ package_mgr|quote }} {{ pkg_flags|quote }} install {{ python|quote }}"

- name: List user accounts on a Windows system
  ansible.builtin.raw: Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_UserAccount

Authors

  • Ansible Core Team
  • Michael DeHaan

© 2012–2018 Michael DeHaan
© 2018–2025 Red Hat, Inc.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/raw_module.html