# this is a virtual module that is entirely implemented server side DOCUMENTATION = ''' --- module: fetch short_description: Fetches a file from remote nodes description: - This module works like M(copy), but in reverse. It is used for fetching files from remote machines and storing them locally in a file tree, organized by hostname. Note that this module is written to transfer log files that might not be present, so a missing remote file won't be an error unless fail_on_missing is set to 'yes'. version_added: historical options: src: description: - The file on the remote system to fetch. This I(must) be a file, not a directory. Recursive fetching may be supported in a later release. required: true default: null aliases: [] dest: description: - A directory to save the file into. For example, if the I(dest) directory is C(/backup) a I(src) file named C(/etc/profile) on host C(host.example.com), would be saved into C(/backup/host.example.com/etc/profile) required: true default: null fail_on_missing: version_added: "1.1" description: - Makes it fails when the source file is missing. required: false choices: [ "yes", "no" ] default: "no" validate_md5: version_added: "1.4" description: - Verify that the source and destination md5sums match after the files are fetched. required: false choices: [ "yes", "no" ] default: "yes" flat: version_added: "1.2" description: Allows you to override the default behavior of prepending hostname/path/to/file to the destination. If dest ends with '/', it will use the basename of the source file, similar to the copy module. Obviously this is only handy if the filenames are unique. requirements: [] author: Michael DeHaan ''' EXAMPLES = ''' # Store file into /tmp/fetched/host.example.com/tmp/somefile - fetch: src=/tmp/somefile dest=/tmp/fetched # Specifying a path directly - fetch: src=/tmp/somefile dest=/tmp/prefix-{{ ansible_hostname }} flat=yes # Specifying a destination path - fetch: src=/tmp/uniquefile dest=/tmp/special/ flat=yes # Storing in a path relative to the playbook - fetch: src=/tmp/uniquefile dest=special/prefix-{{ ansible_hostname }} flat=yes '''