Encrypt a single variable using ansible Vault

Question

I know I can encrypt an entire file using Ansible Vault but what if I want to encrypt a single variable? How do encrypt that?

Answer 1

Hey @Potter, you could do something like this, it's the most basic way of encrypting a single variable:

ansible-vault encrypt_string 
> New Vault password: 
> Confirm New Vault password: 
> Reading plaintext input from stdin. (ctrl-d to end input) 
> this is a plaintext string 
> !vault | 
> $ANSIBLE_VAULT;1.1;AES256 
> 39393766663761653337386436636466396531353261383237613531356531343930663133623839 
> 3436613834303264613038623432303837393261663233640a363633343337623065613166306363 
> 37336132363462386138343535346264333061656134636631326164643035313433393831616131 
> 3635613565373939310a316132313764356432333366396533663965333162336538663432323334 
> 33656365303733303664353961363563313236396262313739343461383036333561 
> Encryption successful

Answer 2

Adding to @Zunaid's answer, this can also be done in a single line:

ansible-vault encrypt_string 'this is a plaintext string' --name 'some_string' 
> New Vault password:
> Confirm New Vault password: 
> some_string: !vault | 
> $ANSIBLE_VAULT;1.1;AES256