find – Return a list of files based on specific criteria

• Synopsis
• Parameters
• See Also
• Examples
• Return Values
• Status

Synopsis

• Return a list of files based on specific criteria. Multiple criteria are AND’d together.
• For Windows targets, use the win_find module instead.

Parameters

See Also

Examples

- name: Recursively find /tmp files older than 2 days
  find:
    paths: /tmp
    age: 2d
    recurse: yes

- name: Recursively find /tmp files older than 4 weeks and equal or greater than 1 megabyte
  find:
    paths: /tmp
    age: 4w
    size: 1m
    recurse: yes

- name: Recursively find /var/tmp files with last access time greater than 3600 seconds
  find:
    paths: /var/tmp
    age: 3600
    age_stamp: atime
    recurse: yes

- name: Find /var/log files equal or greater than 10 megabytes ending with .old or .log.gz
  find:
    paths: /var/log
    patterns: '*.old,*.log.gz'
    size: 10m

# Note that YAML double quotes require escaping backslashes but yaml single quotes do not.
- name: Find /var/log files equal or greater than 10 megabytes ending with .old or .log.gz via regex
  find:
    paths: /var/log
    patterns: "^.*?\\.(?:old|log\\.gz)$"
    size: 10m
    use_regex: yes

- name: Find /var/log all directories, exclude nginx and mysql
  find:
    paths: /var/log
    recurse: no
    file_type: directory
    excludes: 'nginx,mysql'

# When using patterns that contain a comma, make sure they are formatted as lists to avoid splitting the pattern
- name: Use a single pattern that contains a comma formatted as a list
  find:
    paths: /var/log
    file_type: file
    use_regex: yes
    patterns: ['^_[0-9]{2,4}_.*.log$']

- name: Use multiple patterns that contain a comma formatted as a YAML list
  find:
    paths: /var/log
    file_type: file
    use_regex: yes
    patterns:
      - '^_[0-9]{2,4}_.*.log$'
      - '^[a-z]{1,5}_.*log$'

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Status

• This module is guaranteed to have backward compatible interface changes going forward. [stableinterface]
• This module is maintained by the Ansible Core Team. [core]

Red Hat Support

More information about Red Hat’s support of this module is available from this Red Hat Knowledge Base article.

Authors

• Brian Coca (@bcoca)