# How to execute pre tasks on all hosts before running tasks serial:1 **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [June 19, 2015, 8:55am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-execute-pre-tasks-on-all-hosts-before-running-tasks-serial-1/18548 "2015-06-19T08:55:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mark\_van\_der\_Hout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@Mark\_van\_der\_Hout](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Mark_van_der_Hout)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 8:55am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-execute-pre-tasks-on-all-hosts-before-running-tasks-serial-1/18548/1 "2015-06-19T08:55:45Z")
Hi, I have a playbook which deploys a new .war file for a tomcat instance. Since there are 6 hosts in a loadbalanced setup I have configured to run the playbook on 1 host at a time. However, I want to do a ‘pre flight check’ on all hosts if the directory where the .war file is placed even exists, to make sure the playbook won’t break in the middle of a deployment. Is there a way to execute tasks on all hosts before running serial=1 and thus doing the actual deployment? ---
**Author:** ![Barry\_Kaplan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/48db29/32.png) [@Barry\_Kaplan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Barry_Kaplan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 9:09am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-execute-pre-tasks-on-all-hosts-before-running-tasks-serial-1/18548/2 "2015-06-19T09:09:54Z")
Just create two plays in the same playbook file. The first can run in parallel and the second in serial. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_van\_der\_Hout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@Mark\_van\_der\_Hout](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Mark_van_der_Hout)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 9:20am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-execute-pre-tasks-on-all-hosts-before-running-tasks-serial-1/18548/3 "2015-06-19T09:20:50Z")
I feel kinda stupid now. Thanks for pointing out the obvious!