file.append

Source: pkg/state/modules/file_append.go

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
`name`	`string`	No	State ID	Absolute path to the target file. If omitted, the state ID is used as the path.
`text`	`list`	No	`[]`	List of lines that must be present in the file. Each line is checked independently; only missing lines are appended.

All states also accept the full set of requisite parameters and Salt-parity state attributes — see Dependencies & Requisites.

Check Behavior

The check phase performs these comparisons:

File existence — if the file does not exist, the state needs changes (file will be created on apply).
Line presence — reads the file content and checks if each line in text is present (substring match). If any lines are missing, the state needs changes.

If the file exists and all lines are already present, the state reports no changes needed.

Apply Behavior

Reads the current file content (if the file exists, stores it as a backup for revert).
For each line in text, checks if it is already present in the content.
Appends any missing lines, each followed by a newline. Ensures a newline separator before appending if the file does not end with one.
Writes the updated content back to the file with mode 0644.

Revert Behavior

If the file did not exist before Apply (was newly created), removes the file.
If the file existed before Apply, restores the original content from the backup.

Examples

Direct Execution

# Ensure a line is present in a file
zester 'web-01' file.append /etc/hosts text='["192.168.1.10 db-master"]'

# Add multiple lines
zester 'web*' file.append /etc/environment text='["JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-17", "LANG=en_US.UTF-8"]'

State File

Add entries to /etc/hosts:

/etc/hosts:
  file.append:
    - text:
      - "192.168.1.10 db-master"
      - "192.168.1.11 db-replica"

Ensure environment variables are set:

/etc/environment:
  file.append:
    - text:
      - "JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-17"
      - "LANG=en_US.UTF-8"

Append configuration after package install:

/etc/security/limits.conf:
  file.append:
    - text:
      - "* soft nofile 65535"
      - "* hard nofile 65535"
    - require:
      - "pkg.installed:base-packages"