# Serial: 1 only for one play

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/serial-1-only-for-one-play/24911>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [July 6, 2017, 12:04pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/serial-1-only-for-one-play/24911 "2017-07-06T12:04:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Gin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@Gin](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Gin)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 12:04pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/serial-1-only-for-one-play/24911/1 "2017-07-06T12:04:59Z")

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Hi,

When I set serial:1 for one of the plays in a playbook, the whole playbook is then processed one host at a time.  
Is this the intended behaviour?

Is it possible to apply serial:1 only to one play?  
E.g. if I have a playbook comprising three plays: p1, p2 (with serial:1) and p3 then p1 and p3 would be executed in parallel across relevant hosts and the p2 would run sequentially for each host.

Ansible 2.3.1.0

Thanks,  
Gintas

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**Author:** ![Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kai_Stian_Olstad)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 1:34pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/serial-1-only-for-one-play/24911/2 "2017-07-06T13:34:24Z")

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> When I set serial:1 for one of the plays in a playbook, the whole playbook  
> is then processed one host at a time.  
> Is this the intended behaviour?

I can't confirm this on 2.3.1

> Is it possible to apply serial:1 only to one play?  
> E.g. if I have a playbook comprising three plays: p1, p2 (with serial:1)  
> and p3 then p1 and p3 would be executed in parallel across relevant hosts  
> and the p2 would run sequentially for each host.

It does work like that.

playbook.yml

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Gin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@Gin](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Gin)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 1:44pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/serial-1-only-for-one-play/24911/3 "2017-07-06T13:44:57Z")

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Thanks for the response Kai.

Now it is working for me as well. I can no longer reproduce the problem.

Apologies for the false alarm.

Best,  
Gintas