199 lines
7.2 KiB
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199 lines
7.2 KiB
ReStructuredText
Delegation, Rolling Updates, and Local Actions
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==============================================
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.. contents:: Topics
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Being designed for multi-tier deployments since the beginning, Ansible is great at doing things on one host on behalf of another, or doing local steps with reference to some remote hosts.
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This in particular is very applicable when setting up continuous deployment infrastructure or zero downtime rolling updates, where you might be talking with load balancers or monitoring systems.
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Additional features allow for tuning the orders in which things complete, and assigning a batch window size for how many machines to process at once during a rolling update.
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This section covers all of these features. For examples of these items in use, `please see the ansible-examples repository <https://github.com/ansible/ansible-examples/>`_. There are quite a few examples of zero-downtime update procedures for different kinds of applications.
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You should also consult the :doc:`modules` section, various modules like 'ec2_elb', 'nagios', and 'bigip_pool', and 'netscaler' dovetail neatly with the concepts mentioned here.
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You'll also want to read up on :doc:`playbooks_roles`, as the 'pre_task' and 'post_task' concepts are the places where you would typically call these modules.
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.. _rolling_update_batch_size:
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Rolling Update Batch Size
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`````````````````````````
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.. versionadded:: 0.7
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By default, Ansible will try to manage all of the machines referenced in a play in parallel. For a rolling updates
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use case, you can define how many hosts Ansible should manage at a single time by using the ''serial'' keyword::
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- name: test play
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hosts: webservers
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serial: 3
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In the above example, if we had 100 hosts, 3 hosts in the group 'webservers'
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would complete the play completely before moving on to the next 3 hosts.
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The ''serial'' keyword can also be specified as a percentage in Ansible 1.8 and later, which will be applied to the total number of hosts in a
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play, in order to determine the number of hosts per pass::
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- name: test play
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hosts: websevers
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serial: "30%"
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If the number of hosts does not divide equally into the number of passes, the final pass will contain the remainder.
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.. note::
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No matter how small the percentage, the number of hosts per pass will always be 1 or greater.
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.. _maximum_failure_percentage:
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Maximum Failure Percentage
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``````````````````````````
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.. versionadded:: 1.3
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By default, Ansible will continue executing actions as long as there are hosts in the group that have not yet failed.
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In some situations, such as with the rolling updates described above, it may be desirable to abort the play when a
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certain threshold of failures have been reached. To achieve this, as of version 1.3 you can set a maximum failure
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percentage on a play as follows::
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- hosts: webservers
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max_fail_percentage: 30
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serial: 10
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In the above example, if more than 3 of the 10 servers in the group were to fail, the rest of the play would be aborted.
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.. note::
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The percentage set must be exceeded, not equaled. For example, if serial were set to 4 and you wanted the task to abort
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when 2 of the systems failed, the percentage should be set at 49 rather than 50.
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.. _delegation:
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Delegation
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``````````
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.. versionadded:: 0.7
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This isn't actually rolling update specific but comes up frequently in those cases.
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If you want to perform a task on one host with reference to other hosts, use the 'delegate_to' keyword on a task.
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This is ideal for placing nodes in a load balanced pool, or removing them. It is also very useful for controlling
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outage windows. Using this with the 'serial' keyword to control the number of hosts executing at one time is also
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a good idea::
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---
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- hosts: webservers
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serial: 5
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tasks:
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- name: take out of load balancer pool
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command: /usr/bin/take_out_of_pool {{ inventory_hostname }}
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delegate_to: 127.0.0.1
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- name: actual steps would go here
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yum: name=acme-web-stack state=latest
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- name: add back to load balancer pool
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command: /usr/bin/add_back_to_pool {{ inventory_hostname }}
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delegate_to: 127.0.0.1
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These commands will 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::
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---
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# ...
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tasks:
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- name: take out of load balancer pool
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local_action: command /usr/bin/take_out_of_pool {{ inventory_hostname }}
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# ...
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- name: add back to load balancer pool
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local_action: command /usr/bin/add_back_to_pool {{ inventory_hostname }}
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A common pattern is to use a local action to call 'rsync' to recursively copy files to the managed servers.
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Here is an example::
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---
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# ...
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tasks:
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- name: recursively copy files from management server to target
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local_action: command rsync -a /path/to/files {{ inventory_hostname }}:/path/to/target/
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Note that you must have passphrase-less SSH keys or an ssh-agent configured for this to work, otherwise rsync
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will need to ask for a passphrase.
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.. _run_once:
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Run Once
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````````
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.. versionadded:: 1.7
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In some cases there may be a need to only run a task one time and only on one host. This can be achieved
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by configuring "run_once" on a task::
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---
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# ...
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tasks:
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# ...
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- command: /opt/application/upgrade_db.py
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run_once: true
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# ...
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This can be optionally paired with "delegate_to" to specify an individual host to execute on::
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- command: /opt/application/upgrade_db.py
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run_once: true
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delegate_to: web01.example.org
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When "run_once" is not used with "delegate_to" it will execute on the first host, as defined by inventory,
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in the group(s) of hosts targeted by the play. e.g. webservers[0] if the play targeted "hosts: webservers".
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This approach is similar, although more concise and cleaner than applying a conditional to a task such as::
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- command: /opt/application/upgrade_db.py
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when: inventory_hostname == webservers[0]
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.. _local_playbooks:
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Local Playbooks
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```````````````
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It may be useful to use a playbook locally, rather than by connecting over SSH. This can be useful
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for assuring the configuration of a system by putting a playbook on a crontab. This may also be used
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to run a playbook inside an OS installer, such as an Anaconda kickstart.
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To run an entire playbook locally, just set the "hosts:" line to "hosts: 127.0.0.1" and then run the playbook like so::
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ansible-playbook playbook.yml --connection=local
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Alternatively, a local connection can be used in a single playbook play, even if other plays in the playbook
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use the default remote connection type::
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- hosts: 127.0.0.1
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connection: local
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.. seealso::
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:doc:`playbooks`
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An introduction to playbooks
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`Ansible Examples on GitHub <https://github.com/ansible/ansible-examples>`_
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Many examples of full-stack deployments
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`User Mailing List <http://groups.google.com/group/ansible-devel>`_
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Have a question? Stop by the google group!
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`irc.freenode.net <http://irc.freenode.net>`_
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#ansible IRC chat channel
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