Edit current user's shell with ansible

Question

I'm trying yo push my dot files and some personal configuration files to a server (I'm not root or sudoer). Ansible connects as my user in order to edit files in my home folder.

I'd like to set my default shell to

usr/bin/fish

.
I am not allowed to edit

/etc/passwd

so

user:

  name: shaka

  shell: /usr/bin/fish

won't run.

I also checked the

chsh

command but the executable prompt for my password.

How could I change my shell on such machines ? (Debian 8, Ubuntu 16, Opensuse)

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Answer 1

I ended up using two ansible modules :

ansible expect
ansible prompt

First I record my password with a prompt :

vars_prompt:
  - name: "my_password"
    prompt: "Enter password"
    private: yes

And then I use the module expect to send the password to the chsh command :

tasks:
  - name: Case insensitve password string match
    expect:
      command: "chsh -s /usr/bin/fish"
      responses:
        (?i)password: "{{ my_password }}"
      creates: ".shell_is_fish"

The creates sets a lock file avoiding this task to be triggered again. This may be dangerous because the shell could be changed after and ansible will not update it (because of the lock still present). You may want to avoid this behaviour.

Edit current user's shell with ansible

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