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Intro to Playbooks
==================
.. contents::
:local:
.. _about_playbooks:
About Playbooks
```````````````
Playbooks are a completely different way to use ansible than in ad-hoc task execution mode, and are
particularly powerful.
Simply put, playbooks are the basis for a really simple configuration management and multi-machine deployment system,
unlike any that already exist, and one that is very well suited to deploying complex applications.
Playbooks can declare configurations, but they can also orchestrate steps of
any manual ordered process, even as different steps must bounce back and forth
between sets of machines in particular orders. They can launch tasks
synchronously or asynchronously.
While you might run the main ``/usr/bin/ansible`` program for ad-hoc
tasks, playbooks are more likely to be kept in source control and used
to push out your configuration or assure the configurations of your
remote systems are in spec.
There are also some full sets of playbooks illustrating a lot of these techniques in the
`ansible-examples repository <https://github.com/ansible/ansible-examples>`_. We'd recommend
looking at these in another tab as you go along.
There are also many jumping off points after you learn playbooks, so hop back to the documentation
index after you're done with this section.
.. _playbook_language_example:
Playbook Language Example
`````````````````````````
Playbooks are expressed in YAML format (see :ref:`yaml_syntax`) and have a minimum of syntax, which intentionally
tries to not be a programming language or script, but rather a model of a configuration or a process.
.. note::
Some editors have add-ons that can help you write clean YAML syntax in your playbooks. See :ref:`other_tools_and_programs` for details.
Each playbook is composed of one or more 'plays' in a list.
The goal of a play is to map a group of hosts to some well defined roles, represented by
things ansible calls tasks. At a basic level, a task is nothing more than a call
to an ansible module (see :doc:`modules`).
By composing a playbook of multiple 'plays', it is possible to
orchestrate multi-machine deployments, running certain steps on all
machines in the webservers group, then certain steps on the database
server group, then more commands back on the webservers group, etc.
"plays" are more or less a sports analogy. You can have quite a lot of plays that affect your systems
to do different things. It's not as if you were just defining one particular state or model, and you
can run different plays at different times.
.. _apache-playbook:
For starters, here's a playbook, ``verify-apache.yml`` that contains just one play::
---
- hosts: webservers
vars:
http_port: 80
max_clients: 200
remote_user: root
tasks:
- name: ensure apache is at the latest version
yum:
name: httpd
state: latest
- name: write the apache config file
template:
src: /srv/httpd.j2
dest: /etc/httpd.conf
notify:
- restart apache
- name: ensure apache is running
service:
name: httpd
state: started
handlers:
- name: restart apache
service:
name: httpd
state: restarted
Playbooks can contain multiple plays. You may have a playbook that targets first
the web servers, and then the database servers. For example::
---
- hosts: webservers
remote_user: root
tasks:
- name: ensure apache is at the latest version
yum:
name: httpd
state: latest
- name: write the apache config file
template:
src: /srv/httpd.j2
dest: /etc/httpd.conf
- hosts: databases
remote_user: root
tasks:
- name: ensure postgresql is at the latest version
yum:
name: postgresql
state: latest
- name: ensure that postgresql is started
service:
name: postgresql
state: started
You can use this method to switch between the host group you're targeting,
the username logging into the remote servers, whether to sudo or not, and so
forth. Plays, like tasks, run in the order specified in the playbook: top to
bottom.
Below, we'll break down what the various features of the playbook language are.
.. _playbook_basics:
Basics
``````
.. _playbook_hosts_and_users:
Hosts and Users
+++++++++++++++
For each play in a playbook, you get to choose which machines in your infrastructure
to target and what remote user to complete the steps (called tasks) as.
The ``hosts`` line is a list of one or more groups or host patterns,
separated by colons, as described in the :doc:`intro_patterns`
documentation. The ``remote_user`` is just the name of the user account::
---
- hosts: webservers
remote_user: root
.. note::
The ``remote_user`` parameter was formerly called just ``user``. It was renamed in Ansible 1.4 to make it more distinguishable from the **user** module (used to create users on remote systems).
Remote users can also be defined per task::
---
- hosts: webservers
remote_user: root
tasks:
- name: test connection
ping:
remote_user: yourname
Support for running things as another user is also available (see :doc:`become`)::
---
- hosts: webservers
remote_user: yourname
become: yes
You can also use keyword ``become`` on a particular task instead of the whole play::
---
- hosts: webservers
remote_user: yourname
tasks:
- service:
name: nginx
state: started
become: yes
become_method: sudo
You can also login as you, and then become a user different than root::
---
- hosts: webservers
remote_user: yourname
become: yes
become_user: postgres
You can also use other privilege escalation methods, like su::
---
- hosts: webservers
remote_user: yourname
become: yes
become_method: su
Become plugins (#50991) * [WIP] become plugins Move from hardcoded method to plugins for ease of use, expansion and overrides - load into connection as it is going to be the main consumer - play_context will also use to keep backwards compat API - ensure shell is used to construct commands when needed - migrate settings remove from base config in favor of plugin specific configs - cleanup ansible-doc - add become plugin docs - remove deprecated sudo/su code and keywords - adjust become options for cli - set plugin options from context - ensure config defs are avaialbe before instance - refactored getting the shell plugin, fixed tests - changed into regex as they were string matching, which does not work with random string generation - explicitly set flags for play context tests - moved plugin loading up front - now loads for basedir also - allow pyc/o for non m modules - fixes to tests and some plugins - migrate to play objects fro play_context - simiplify gathering - added utf8 headers - moved option setting - add fail msg to dzdo - use tuple for multiple options on fail/missing - fix relative plugin paths - shift from play context to play - all tasks already inherit this from play directly - remove obsolete 'set play' - correct environment handling - add wrap_exe option to pfexec - fix runas to noop - fixed setting play context - added password configs - removed required false - remove from doc building till they are ready future development: - deal with 'enable' and 'runas' which are not 'command wrappers' but 'state flags' and currently hardcoded in diff subsystems * cleanup remove callers to removed func removed --sudo cli doc refs remove runas become_exe ensure keyerorr on plugin also fix backwards compat, missing method is attributeerror, not ansible error get remote_user consistently ignore missing system_tmpdirs on plugin load correct config precedence add deprecation fix networking imports backwards compat for plugins using BECOME_METHODS * Port become_plugins to context.CLIARGS This is a work in progress: * Stop passing options around everywhere as we can use context.CLIARGS instead * Refactor make_become_commands as asked for by alikins * Typo in comment fix * Stop loading values from the cli in more than one place Both play and play_context were saving default values from the cli arguments directly. This changes things so that the default values are loaded into the play and then play_context takes them from there. * Rename BECOME_PLUGIN_PATH to DEFAULT_BECOME_PLUGIN_PATH As alikins said, all other plugin paths are named DEFAULT_plugintype_PLUGIN_PATH. If we're going to rename these, that should be done all at one time rather than piecemeal. * One to throw away This is a set of hacks to get setting FieldAttribute defaults to command line args to work. It's not fully done yet. After talking it over with sivel and jimi-c this should be done by fixing FieldAttributeBase and _get_parent_attribute() calls to do the right thing when there is a non-None default. What we want to be able to do ideally is something like this: class Base(FieldAttributeBase): _check_mode = FieldAttribute([..] default=lambda: context.CLIARGS['check']) class Play(Base): # lambda so that we have a chance to parse the command line args # before we get here. In the future we might be able to restructure # this so that the cli parsing code runs before these classes are # defined. class Task(Base): pass And still have a playbook like this function: --- - hosts: tasks: - command: whoami check_mode: True (The check_mode test that is added as a separate commit in this PR will let you test variations on this case). There's a few separate reasons that the code doesn't let us do this or a non-ugly workaround for this as written right now. The fix that jimi-c, sivel, and I talked about may let us do this or it may still require a workaround (but less ugly) (having one class that has the FieldAttributes with default values and one class that inherits from that but just overrides the FieldAttributes which now have defaults) * Revert "One to throw away" This reverts commit 23aa883cbed11429ef1be2a2d0ed18f83a3b8064. * Set FieldAttr defaults directly from CLIARGS * Remove dead code * Move timeout directly to PlayContext, it's never needed on Play * just for backwards compat, add a static version of BECOME_METHODS to constants * Make the become attr on the connection public, since it's used outside of the connection * Logic fix * Nuke connection testing if it supports specific become methods * Remove unused vars * Address rebase issues * Fix path encoding issue * Remove unused import * Various cleanups * Restore network_cli check in _low_level_execute_command * type improvements for cliargs_deferred_get and swap shallowcopy to default to False * minor cleanups * Allow the su plugin to work, since it doesn't define a prompt the same way * Fix up ksu become plugin * Only set prompt if build_become_command was called * Add helper to assist connection plugins in knowing they need to wait for a prompt * Fix tests and code expectations * Doc updates * Various additional minor cleanups * Make doas functional * Don't change connection signature, load become plugin from TaskExecutor * Remove unused imports * Add comment about setting the become plugin on the playcontext * Fix up tests for recent changes * Support 'Password:' natively for the doas plugin * Make default prompts raw * wording cleanups. ci_complete * Remove unrelated changes * Address spelling mistake * Restore removed test, and udpate to use new functionality * Add changelog fragment * Don't hard fail in set_attributes_from_cli on missing CLI keys * Remove unrelated change to loader * Remove internal deprecated FieldAttributes now * Emit deprecation warnings now
6 years ago
If you need to specify a password for sudo, run ``ansible-playbook`` with ``--ask-become-pass`` or ``-K``.
If you run a playbook utilizing ``become`` and the playbook seems to hang, it's probably stuck at the privilege
escalation prompt and can be stopped using `Control-C`, allowing you to re-execute the playbook adding the
appropriate password.
.. important::
When using ``become_user`` to a user other than root, the module
arguments are briefly written into a random tempfile in ``/tmp``.
These are deleted immediately after the command is executed. This
only occurs when changing privileges from a user like 'bob' to 'timmy',
not when going from 'bob' to 'root', or logging in directly as 'bob' or
'root'. If it concerns you that this data is briefly readable
(not writable), avoid transferring unencrypted passwords with
`become_user` set. In other cases, ``/tmp`` is not used and this does
not come into play. Ansible also takes care to not log password
parameters.
.. _order:
7 years ago
.. versionadded:: 2.4
You can also control the order in which hosts are run. The default is to follow the order supplied by the inventory::
- hosts: all
order: sorted
gather_facts: False
tasks:
- debug:
var: inventory_hostname
Possible values for order are:
inventory:
The default. The order is 'as provided' by the inventory
reverse_inventory:
As the name implies, this reverses the order 'as provided' by the inventory
sorted:
Hosts are alphabetically sorted by name
reverse_sorted:
Hosts are sorted by name in reverse alphabetical order
shuffle:
Hosts are randomly ordered each run
.. _tasks_list:
Tasks list
++++++++++
Each play contains a list of tasks. Tasks are executed in order, one
at a time, against all machines matched by the host pattern,
before moving on to the next task. It is important to understand that, within a play,
all hosts are going to get the same task directives. It is the purpose of a play to map
a selection of hosts to tasks.
When running the playbook, which runs top to bottom, hosts with failed tasks are
taken out of the rotation for the entire playbook. If things fail, simply correct the playbook file and rerun.
The goal of each task is to execute a module, with very specific arguments.
Variables can be used in arguments to modules.
Modules should be idempotent, that is, running a module multiple times
in a sequence should have the same effect as running it just once. One
way to achieve idempotency is to have a module check whether its desired
final state has already been achieved, and if that state has been achieved,
to exit without performing any actions. If all the modules a playbook uses
are idempotent, then the playbook itself is likely to be idempotent, so
re-running the playbook should be safe.
The **command** and **shell** modules will typically rerun the same command again,
which is totally ok if the command is something like
``chmod`` or ``setsebool``, etc. Though there is a ``creates`` flag available which can
be used to make these modules also idempotent.
Every task should have a ``name``, which is included in the output from
running the playbook. This is human readable output, and so it is
useful to provide good descriptions of each task step. If the name
is not provided though, the string fed to 'action' will be used for
output.
Tasks can be declared using the legacy ``action: module options`` format, but
it is recommended that you use the more conventional ``module: options`` format.
This recommended format is used throughout the documentation, but you may
encounter the older format in some playbooks.
Here is what a basic task looks like. As with most modules,
the service module takes ``key=value`` arguments::
tasks:
- name: make sure apache is running
service:
name: httpd
state: started
The **command** and **shell** modules are the only modules that just take a list
of arguments and don't use the ``key=value`` form. This makes
them work as simply as you would expect::
tasks:
- name: enable selinux
command: /sbin/setenforce 1
The **command** and **shell** module care about return codes, so if you have a command
whose successful exit code is not zero, you may wish to do this::
tasks:
- name: run this command and ignore the result
shell: /usr/bin/somecommand || /bin/true
Or this::
tasks:
- name: run this command and ignore the result
shell: /usr/bin/somecommand
ignore_errors: True
If the action line is getting too long for comfort you can break it on
a space and indent any continuation lines::
tasks:
- name: Copy ansible inventory file to client
copy: src=/etc/ansible/hosts dest=/etc/ansible/hosts
owner=root group=root mode=0644
Variables can be used in action lines. Suppose you defined
a variable called ``vhost`` in the ``vars`` section, you could do this::
tasks:
- name: create a virtual host file for {{ vhost }}
template:
src: somefile.j2
dest: /etc/httpd/conf.d/{{ vhost }}
Those same variables are usable in templates, which we'll get to later.
Now in a very basic playbook all the tasks will be listed directly in that play, though it will usually
make more sense to break up tasks as described in :doc:`playbooks_reuse`.
.. _action_shorthand:
Action Shorthand
````````````````
.. versionadded:: 0.8
Ansible prefers listing modules like this::
template:
src: templates/foo.j2
dest: /etc/foo.conf
Early versions of Ansible used the following format, which still works::
action: template src=templates/foo.j2 dest=/etc/foo.conf
.. _handlers:
Handlers: Running Operations On Change
``````````````````````````````````````
As we've mentioned, modules should be idempotent and can relay when
they have made a change on the remote system. Playbooks recognize this and
have a basic event system that can be used to respond to change.
These 'notify' actions are triggered at the end of each block of tasks in a play, and will only be
triggered once even if notified by multiple different tasks.
For instance, multiple resources may indicate
that apache needs to be restarted because they have changed a config file,
but apache will only be bounced once to avoid unnecessary restarts.
Here's an example of restarting two services when the contents of a file
change, but only if the file changes::
- name: template configuration file
template:
src: template.j2
dest: /etc/foo.conf
notify:
- restart memcached
- restart apache
The things listed in the ``notify`` section of a task are called
handlers.
Handlers are lists of tasks, not really any different from regular
tasks, that are referenced by a globally unique name, and are notified
by notifiers. If nothing notifies a handler, it will not
run. Regardless of how many tasks notify a handler, it will run only
once, after all of the tasks complete in a particular play.
Here's an example handlers section::
handlers:
- name: restart memcached
service:
name: memcached
state: restarted
- name: restart apache
service:
name: apache
state: restarted
As of Ansible 2.2, handlers can also "listen" to generic topics, and tasks can notify those topics as follows::
handlers:
- name: restart memcached
service:
name: memcached
state: restarted
listen: "restart web services"
- name: restart apache
service:
name: apache
state: restarted
listen: "restart web services"
tasks:
- name: restart everything
command: echo "this task will restart the web services"
notify: "restart web services"
This use makes it much easier to trigger multiple handlers. It also decouples handlers from their names,
making it easier to share handlers among playbooks and roles (especially when using 3rd party roles from
a shared source like Galaxy).
.. note::
* Notify handlers are always run in the same order they are defined, `not` in the order listed in the notify-statement. This is also the case for handlers using `listen`.
* Handler names and `listen` topics live in a global namespace.
* Use unique handler names. If you trigger more than one handler with the same name, the first one(s) get overwritten. Only the last one defined will run.
* You cannot notify a handler that is defined inside of an include. As of Ansible 2.1, this does work, however the include must be `static`.
Roles are described later on, but it's worthwhile to point out that:
* handlers notified within ``pre_tasks``, ``tasks``, and ``post_tasks`` sections are automatically flushed in the end of section where they were notified,
* handlers notified within ``roles`` section are automatically flushed in the end of ``tasks`` section, but before any ``tasks`` handlers,
* handlers are play scoped and as such can be used outside of the role they are defined in.
If you ever want to flush all the handler commands immediately you can do this::
tasks:
- shell: some tasks go here
- meta: flush_handlers
- shell: some other tasks
In the above example any queued up handlers would be processed early when the ``meta``
statement was reached. This is a bit of a niche case but can come in handy from
time to time.
.. _executing_a_playbook:
Executing A Playbook
````````````````````
Now that you've learned playbook syntax, how do you run a playbook? It's simple.
Let's run a playbook using a parallelism level of 10::
ansible-playbook playbook.yml -f 10
.. _playbook_ansible-pull:
Ansible-Pull
````````````
Should you want to invert the architecture of Ansible, so that nodes check in to a central location, instead
of pushing configuration out to them, you can.
The ``ansible-pull`` is a small script that will checkout a repo of configuration instructions from git, and then
run ``ansible-playbook`` against that content.
Assuming you load balance your checkout location, ``ansible-pull`` scales essentially infinitely.
Run ``ansible-pull --help`` for details.
There's also a `clever playbook <https://github.com/ansible/ansible-examples/blob/master/language_features/ansible_pull.yml>`_ available to configure ``ansible-pull`` via a crontab from push mode.
.. _linting_playbooks:
Linting playbooks
`````````````````
You can use `ansible-lint <https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-lint/index.html>`_ to run a detail check of your playbooks before you execute them.
For example, if you run ``ansible-lint`` on the :ref:`verify-apache.yml playbook <apache-playbook>` introduced earlier in this section, you'll get the following results:
.. code-block:: bash
$ ansible-lint veryify-apache.yml
[403] Package installs should not use latest
verify-apache.yml:8
Task/Handler: ensure apache is at the latest version
The `ansible-lint default rules <https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-lint/rules/default_rules.html>`_ page describes each error. For ``[403]``, the recommended fix is to change ``state: latest`` to ``state: present`` in the playbook.
Other playbook verification options
```````````````````````````````````
See :ref:`validate-playbook-tools` for a detailed list of tools you can use to verify your playbooks. Here are some others that you should consider:
* To check the syntax of a playbook, use ``ansible-playbook`` with the ``--syntax-check`` flag. This will run the
playbook file through the parser to ensure its included files, roles, etc. have no syntax problems.
* Look at the bottom of the playbook execution for a summary of the nodes that were targeted
and how they performed. General failures and fatal "unreachable" communication attempts are kept separate in the counts.
* If you ever want to see detailed output from successful modules as well as unsuccessful ones,
use the ``--verbose`` flag. This is available in Ansible 0.5 and later.
* To see what hosts would be affected by a playbook before you run it, you
can do this::
ansible-playbook playbook.yml --list-hosts
.. seealso::
`ansible-lint <https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-lint/index.html>`_
Learn how to test Ansible Playbooks syntax
:ref:`yaml_syntax`
Learn about YAML syntax
:ref:`playbooks_best_practices`
Various tips about managing playbooks in the real world
:ref:`all_modules`
Learn about available modules
:ref:`developing_modules`
Learn how to extend Ansible by writing your own modules
:ref:`intro_patterns`
Learn about how to select hosts
`GitHub examples directory <https://github.com/ansible/ansible-examples>`_
Complete end-to-end playbook examples
`Mailing List <https://groups.google.com/group/ansible-project>`_
Questions? Help? Ideas? Stop by the list on Google Groups