Keyboard Ansible Role¶

Manage keyboard layout on Debian-based and Red Hat-based systems by configuring keyboard settings and applying changes.

What this role does:

Installs required packages (console-setup, keyboard-configuration on Debian/Ubuntu; kbd, systemd on Fedora)
Renders /etc/default/keyboard with desired XKB settings
Applies the configuration (restart keyboard-setup, trigger udev, apply console keymap)

This role does not manage system locales.

Role Variables¶

Variable	Default	Type	Description
`keyboard_layout`	`ch`	string	Keyboard layout (e.g., `ch`, `us`, `gb`, `de`)
`keyboard_variant`	`de`	string	Keyboard variant (e.g., `de`, `fr`, `nodeadkeys`, leave empty for none)
`keyboard_model`	`pc105`	string	Keyboard model (e.g., `pc105`)
`keyboard_options`	`[]`	list	Extra keyboard options (e.g., `["ctrl:nocaps", "lv3:ralt_switch"]`)
`keyboard_apply`	`true`	bool	Whether to apply changes immediately (reload service, trigger udev, etc.)

Example Playbook¶

- hosts: servers
  become: true
  roles:
    - role: keyboard

Custom layout:

- hosts: servers
  become: true
  roles:
    - role: keyboard
      vars:
        keyboard_layout: "gb"
        keyboard_variant: "intl"
        keyboard_model: "pc105"
        keyboard_options:
          - "ctrl:nocaps"

Note: X keyboard configuration affects both console and X11 on Debian/Ubuntu via /etc/default/keyboard. On Fedora systems, keyboard configuration is handled through systemd and localectl.