ansible/docs/docsite/rst/user_guide/playbooks_delegation.rst
Andrew Klychkov 47cabb1d32
[2.10] Doc backports: 71753, 71754, 71769, 71770, 71771, 71772 (#71807)
* Docsite: misc fixes of playbooks_delegation (#71753)

(cherry picked from commit 05a45f63ff)

* Docsite: fix playbooks_conditionals (#71754)

(cherry picked from commit aa1f0bd062)

* Docsite: fix user_guide/playbooks_blocks (#71769)

(cherry picked from commit 79dc6fa948)

* Docsite: fix user_guide/playbooks_handlers (#71770)

(cherry picked from commit 1cf42897d2)

* Docsite: fix user_guide/playbooks_error_handling (#71771)

(cherry picked from commit 2c6661d4c1)

* Docsite: fix user_guide/playbooks_environment (#71772)

(cherry picked from commit a204f5f955)
2020-09-21 11:20:57 -05:00

136 lines
5.9 KiB
ReStructuredText

.. _playbooks_delegation:
Controlling where tasks run: delegation and local actions
=========================================================
By default Ansible gathers facts and executes all tasks on the machines that match the ``hosts`` line of your playbook. This page shows you how to delegate tasks to a different machine or group, delegate facts to specific machines or groups, or run an entire playbook locally. Using these approaches, you can manage inter-related environments precisely and efficiently. For example, when updating your webservers, you might need to remove them from a load-balanced pool temporarily. You cannot perform this task on the webservers themselves. By delegating the task to localhost, you keep all the tasks within the same play.
.. contents::
:local:
Tasks that cannot be delegated
------------------------------
Some tasks always execute on the controller. These tasks, including ``include``, ``add_host``, and ``debug``, cannot be delegated.
.. _delegation:
Delegating tasks
----------------
If you want to perform a task on one host with reference to other hosts, use the ``delegate_to`` keyword on a task. This is ideal for managing nodes in a load balanced pool or for controlling outage windows. You can use delegation with the :ref:`serial <rolling_update_batch_size>` keyword to control the number of hosts executing at one time::
---
- hosts: webservers
serial: 5
tasks:
- name: Take out of load balancer pool
ansible.builtin.command: /usr/bin/take_out_of_pool {{ inventory_hostname }}
delegate_to: 127.0.0.1
- name: Actual steps would go here
ansible.builtin.yum:
name: acme-web-stack
state: latest
- name: Add back to load balancer pool
ansible.builtin.command: /usr/bin/add_back_to_pool {{ inventory_hostname }}
delegate_to: 127.0.0.1
The first and third tasks in this play run on 127.0.0.1, which is the machine running Ansible. There is also a shorthand syntax that you can use on a per-task basis: ``local_action``. Here is the same playbook as above, but using the shorthand syntax for delegating to 127.0.0.1::
---
# ...
tasks:
- name: Take out of load balancer pool
local_action: ansible.builtin.command /usr/bin/take_out_of_pool {{ inventory_hostname }}
# ...
- name: Add back to load balancer pool
local_action: ansible.builtin.command /usr/bin/add_back_to_pool {{ inventory_hostname }}
You can use a local action to call 'rsync' to recursively copy files to the managed servers::
---
# ...
tasks:
- name: Recursively copy files from management server to target
local_action: ansible.builtin.command rsync -a /path/to/files {{ inventory_hostname }}:/path/to/target/
Note that you must have passphrase-less SSH keys or an ssh-agent configured for this to work, otherwise rsync asks for a passphrase.
To specify more arguments, use the following syntax::
---
# ...
tasks:
- name: Send summary mail
local_action:
module: community.general.mail
subject: "Summary Mail"
to: "{{ mail_recipient }}"
body: "{{ mail_body }}"
run_once: True
The `ansible_host` variable reflects the host a task is delegated to.
.. _delegate_facts:
Delegating facts
----------------
Delegating Ansible tasks is like delegating tasks in the real world - your groceries belong to you, even if someone else delivers them to your home. Similarly, any facts gathered by a delegated task are assigned by default to the `inventory_hostname` (the current host), not to the host which produced the facts (the delegated to host). To assign gathered facts to the delegated host instead of the current host, set ``delegate_facts`` to ``true``::
---
- hosts: app_servers
tasks:
- name: Gather facts from db servers
ansible.builtin.setup:
delegate_to: "{{ item }}"
delegate_facts: true
loop: "{{ groups['dbservers'] }}"
This task gathers facts for the machines in the dbservers group and assigns the facts to those machines, even though the play targets the app_servers group. This way you can lookup `hostvars['dbhost1']['ansible_default_ipv4']['address']` even though dbservers were not part of the play, or left out by using `--limit`.
.. _local_playbooks:
Local playbooks
---------------
It may be useful to use a playbook locally on a remote host, rather than by connecting over SSH. This can be useful for assuring the configuration of a system by putting a playbook in a crontab. This may also be used
to run a playbook inside an OS installer, such as an Anaconda kickstart.
To run an entire playbook locally, just set the ``hosts:`` line to ``hosts: 127.0.0.1`` and then run the playbook like so::
ansible-playbook playbook.yml --connection=local
Alternatively, a local connection can be used in a single playbook play, even if other plays in the playbook
use the default remote connection type::
---
- hosts: 127.0.0.1
connection: local
.. note::
If you set the connection to local and there is no ansible_python_interpreter set, modules will run under /usr/bin/python and not
under {{ ansible_playbook_python }}. Be sure to set ansible_python_interpreter: "{{ ansible_playbook_python }}" in
host_vars/localhost.yml, for example. You can avoid this issue by using ``local_action`` or ``delegate_to: localhost`` instead.
.. seealso::
:ref:`playbooks_intro`
An introduction to playbooks
:ref:`playbooks_strategies`
More ways to control how and where Ansible executes
`Ansible Examples on GitHub <https://github.com/ansible/ansible-examples>`_
Many examples of full-stack deployments
`User Mailing List <https://groups.google.com/group/ansible-devel>`_
Have a question? Stop by the google group!
`irc.freenode.net <http://irc.freenode.net>`_
#ansible IRC chat channel