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community.general.pacman – Manage packages with pacman

Note

This plugin is part of the community.general collection (version 3.8.1).

You might already have this collection installed if you are using the ansible package. It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install community.general.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.general.pacman.

Synopsis

  • Manage packages with the pacman package manager, which is used by Arch Linux and its variants.

Parameters

Parameter Choices/Defaults Comments
executable
string
added in 3.1.0 of community.general
Default:
"pacman"
Name of binary to use. This can either be pacman or a pacman compatible AUR helper.
Beware that AUR helpers might behave unexpectedly and are therefore not recommended.
extra_args
string
Additional option to pass to pacman when enforcing state.
force
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
When removing package, force remove package, without any checks. Same as `extra_args="--nodeps --nodeps"`. When update_cache, force redownload repo databases. Same as `update_cache_extra_args="--refresh --refresh"`.
name
list / elements=string
Name or list of names of the package(s) or file(s) to install, upgrade, or remove. Can't be used in combination with upgrade.

aliases: package, pkg
state
string
    Choices:
  • absent
  • installed
  • latest
  • present ←
  • removed
Whether to install (present or installed, latest), or remove (absent or removed) a package.
present and installed will simply ensure that a desired package is installed.
latest will update the specified package if it is not of the latest available version.
absent and removed will remove the specified package.
update_cache
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Whether or not to refresh the master package lists.
This can be run as part of a package installation or as a separate step.
Alias update-cache has been deprecated and will be removed in community.general 5.0.0.

aliases: update-cache
update_cache_extra_args
string
Additional option to pass to pacman when enforcing update_cache.
upgrade
boolean
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
Whether or not to upgrade the whole system. Can't be used in combination with name.
upgrade_extra_args
string
Additional option to pass to pacman when enforcing upgrade.

Notes

Note

  • When used with a loop: each package will be processed individually, it is much more efficient to pass the list directly to the name option.
  • To use an AUR helper (executable option), a few extra setup steps might be required beforehand. For example, a dedicated build user with permissions to install packages could be necessary.

Examples

- name: Install package foo from repo
  community.general.pacman:
    name: foo
    state: present

- name: Install package bar from file
  community.general.pacman:
    name: ~/bar-1.0-1-any.pkg.tar.xz
    state: present

- name: Install package foo from repo and bar from file
  community.general.pacman:
    name:
      - foo
      - ~/bar-1.0-1-any.pkg.tar.xz
    state: present

- name: Install package from AUR using a Pacman compatible AUR helper
  community.general.pacman:
    name: foo
    state: present
    executable: yay
    extra_args: --builddir /var/cache/yay

- name: Upgrade package foo
  community.general.pacman:
    name: foo
    state: latest
    update_cache: yes

- name: Remove packages foo and bar
  community.general.pacman:
    name:
      - foo
      - bar
    state: absent

- name: Recursively remove package baz
  community.general.pacman:
    name: baz
    state: absent
    extra_args: --recursive

- name: Run the equivalent of "pacman -Sy" as a separate step
  community.general.pacman:
    update_cache: yes

- name: Run the equivalent of "pacman -Su" as a separate step
  community.general.pacman:
    upgrade: yes

- name: Run the equivalent of "pacman -Syu" as a separate step
  community.general.pacman:
    update_cache: yes
    upgrade: yes

- name: Run the equivalent of "pacman -Rdd", force remove package baz
  community.general.pacman:
    name: baz
    state: absent
    force: yes

Return Values

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

Key Returned Description
packages
list / elements=string
when upgrade is set to yes
a list of packages that have been changed

Sample:
['package', 'other-package']


Authors

  • Indrajit Raychaudhuri (@indrajitr)
  • Aaron Bull Schaefer (@elasticdog) <aaron@elasticdog.com>
  • Maxime de Roucy (@tchernomax)

© 2012–2018 Michael DeHaan
© 2018–2021 Red Hat, Inc.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/community/general/pacman_module.html