win_template Illegal characters in path

[Joe Levis]

Not sure what I'm doing wrong here. I've tried all different styles of configuration with no success. I'm trying to templatize a config file on a Windows Server 2012 R2, but it's throwing the below error:

"failed": true, "invocation": {"module_args": {"dest": "C:\temp\test.conf", "src": "templates/config.j2"}, "module_name": "win_template"}, "msg": "Illegal characters in path."}

Playbook:

---

- include_vars: variables.yml

- name: Config file

  win_template: src=templates/config.j2 dest=C:\temp\test.conf

variables.yml:

test_password: test123!

templates/config.j2:

password={{ test_password }}

What exactly is the illegal argument? I'm using Ansible 2.0.0.2 on Ubuntu 14.04.

[J Hawkesworth]

I'm guessing here that you are getting bitten by the \t part of c:\temp being interpreted as a tab character.

try

- name: Config file

  win_template: src=templates/config.j2 dest='C:\temp\test.conf'

or if you prefer double quotes:

- name: Config file

  win_template: src=templates/config.j2 dest="C:\\temp\\test.conf"

(note the \\ as windows path separator):

actually may need to be

- name: Config file

  win_template: "src=templates/config.j2 dest=C:\\temp\\test.conf"

Hope this helps,

Jon

[Joe Levis]

You were right Jon. I needed to escape the backslashes. This worked:

dest="C:\\temp\\test.conf"

Thanks!

-Joe