Ansible troubleshooting — Error 208: risky-file-permissions

How to Solve the Ansible Error 208 risky-file-permissions Ensuring Secure File Permissions in Your Playbooks

Introduction

Ansible, the robust automation tool, empowers users to manage configurations, deploy software, and automate a wide range of tasks with ease. However, ensuring the security and predictability of file permissions when creating or manipulating files is crucial to maintaining a stable and safe environment. In this article, we’ll explore Ansible Error 208, “`risky-file-permissions`,” which focuses on the risks associated with modules that can create or modify files with potentially insecure or unpredictable permissions. We’ll discuss how to use these modules safely and mitigate potential security issues in your Ansible playbooks.

The Problem: Risky File Permissions

Ansible Error 208, “`risky-file-permissions`,” serves as a reminder of the potential security risks posed by modules that can create or modify files with overly open or unpredictable permissions. This rule is triggered by various modules, such as ansible.builtin.copy, ansible.builtin.file, community.general.archive, and others. If the proper arguments are not used with these modules, it can…