I would like to run a handler only once in an entire playbook.
I attempted using an include statement in the following in the playbook file, but this resulted in the handler being run multiple times, once for each play:
- name: Configure common config
hosts: all
become: true
vars:
OE: "{{ ansible_hostname[5] }}"
roles:
- { role: common }
handlers:
- include: handlers/main.yml
- name: Configure metadata config
hosts: metadata
become: true
vars:
OE: "{{ ansible_hostname[5] }}"
roles:
- { role: metadata }
handlers:
- include: handlers/main.yml
Here is the content of handlers/main.yml:
- name: restart autofs
service:
name: autofs.service
state: restarted
Here is an example of one of the tasks that notifies the handler:
- name: Configure automount - /opt/local/xxx in /etc/auto.direct
lineinfile:
dest: /etc/auto.direct
regexp: "^/opt/local/xxx"
line: "/opt/local/xxx -acdirmin=0,acdirmax=0,rdirplus,rw,hard,intr,bg,retry=2 nfs_server:/vol/xxx"
notify: restart autofs
How can I get the playbook to only execute the handler once for the entire playbook?
The answer
The literal answer to the question in the title is: no.
Playbook is a list of plays. Playbook has no namespace, no variables, no state. All the configuration, logic, and tasks are defined in plays.
Handler is a task with a different calling schedule (not sequential, but conditional, once at the end of a play, or triggered by the
meta: flush_handlers
task).A handler belongs to a play, not a playbook, and there is no way to trigger it outside of the play (i.e. at the end of the playbook).
Solution
The solution to the problem is possible without referring to handlers.
You can use
group_by
module to create an ad-hoc group based on the result of the tasks at the bottom of each play.Then you can define a separate play at the end of the playbook restarting the service on targets belonging to the above ad-hoc group.
Refer to the below stub for the idea: