How to move/rename a file using an Ansible task on a remote system

Question

How is it possible to move/rename a file/directory using an Ansible module on a remote system? I don't want to use the command/shell tasks and I don't want to copy the file from the local system to the remote system.

Answer 1

From version 2.0, in copy module you can use remote_src parameter.

If True it will go to the remote/target machine for the src.

- name: Copy files from foo to bar
  copy: remote_src=True src=/path/to/foo dest=/path/to/bar

If you want to move file you need to delete old file with file module

- name: Remove old files foo
  file: path=/path/to/foo state=absent

From version 2.8 copy module remote_src supports recursive copying.