skip-tags doesn't work for handlers

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1

Is it expected for ansible-playbook with –skip-tags to not skip handlers tagged properly?

Let me give an example. If you have the following handler:

`

  • name: NGINX reload
    service:
    name: nginx
    state: reloaded
    tags: reload

`

And you run:
ansible-playbook ... --skip-tags reload

Is it expected the handler to be skipped?

For me, it is not expected and I would consider it bug but want to double check that before posing an issue.

2

shouldn't that be :

- name: NGINX reload
  service: name=nginx state=reloaded
  tags: reload

?

3

Both are the same… Just a different ways to write YAML.

4

​Not exactly, both are equivalen notations that ansible parses​, the former
being pure yaml :slight_smile:

5

Handlers ignore tags, they only run when notified and always run when notified

6

So there is not way to skip a handler through ansible-playbook… Consider that a feature request :wink:

7

I would like the same feature.

I don’t know if there is another way to do what I am trying to do.
My case of use would be to be able to use the same roles/playbooks to mantain the configuration along all my servers and for the AMI creation. In the case of an ami creation I don’t want the services to start o restart, I don’t want to execute a restart when copying the config file.

Is there any other way to do taht without skiping handlers?

8

I tried with a “when” statement on the handler definition (with a variable defined by me) but id didn’t seem to work either, the handler is executed anyway, and the AMI creation fails for that.

9

handlers are not affected by tags in general, but they should be
affected by when:

10

Thanks Brian,

Is there a minimum version for the “when” statment to work with handlers?
The ansible version I am using for this test is 1.7.2

I have:

file: roles/beaver-configure/handlers/main.yml

  • name: restart beaver
    service: name=beaver.sh state=restarted
    when: flag_not_restart is not defined

file: roles/beaver-configure/tasks/main.yml

  • name: Copy conf beaver
    template: src=…/templates/conf.j2 dest=/etc/beaver/conf group=root owner=root mode=0644
    notify: restart beaver
  • name: Start a enable beaver
    service: name=beaver.sh enabled=yes state=started

I call an ansible playbook which calls the beaver role with:
/usr/local/bin/ansible-playbook /tmp/ansible-local/php.yml --extra-vars ‘flag_not_restart=1’ -c local -i /tmp/ansible-local/localhost.inv

If I debug the “flag_not_restart” I can see it exist and is “1”.
And yet the “restart beaver” handler is called and executed.

So, am I doing something wrong?

11

Sorry Brian,

My bad. It works with the “when” statement on the handler.