Using Ansible to Batch Create and Delete Users on Remote Hosts

Ansible is built on Paramiko and operates without installing client agents on remote hosts, using SSH to execute modules that provide true batch deployment capabilities.

Batch creating a user

ansible web -m user -a 'name=test01 shell=/bin/bash home=/opt/test01 state=present'

Output (truncated):

{ "ansible_facts": {"discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python"}, "changed": true, "create_home": true, "group": 1002, "home": "/opt/test01", "name": "test01", "shell": "/bin/bash", "state": "present", "system": false, "uid": 1002 }

The same command runs on each host in the web inventory, confirming the user was added.

Verifying the user

ansible web -m shell -a 'tail -1 /etc/passwd'

Result shows the new entry:

test01:x:1002:1002::/opt/test01:/bin/bash

ansible web -m shell -a 'ls /opt/'

Lists the directory contents, confirming the home folder exists.

Deleting the user and its home directory

ansible web -m user -a 'name=test01 remove=yes state=absent'

After deletion, re‑run the tail -1 /etc/passwd command to verify the entry is gone.

Images in the original article illustrate the command output and the removal verification.