Using tags in a playbook

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1

I’m still pretty new to Ansible, and I’m trying to figure out the proper method for setting up a role, and then calling only a couple of tasks from that role from a playbook.

The reason I’m doing so, is I have a group of nodes that need two tomcat instances running on top of a base instance, but I also have another group that only needs one tomcat instance. So I’ve created a very simple role:

  • name: install tomcat7
    sudo: True
    apt: name=tomcat7 update_cache=yes cache_valid_time=3600
    tags:
  • wowza
  • name: create directory structure for tomcat_1
    sudo: True
    file: path=/var/opt/tomcat_1/{{ item }} state=directory owner=tomcat7 group=nogroup
    with_items:
  • bin
  • conf
  • logs
  • temp
  • webapps
  • work
    tags:
  • java_nodes
  • name: create lib link
    file: src=/usr/share/tomcat7/lib dest=/var/opt/tomcat_1/lib state=link
    tags:
  • java_nodes
  • name: create deeper directory structure for tomcat_1
    sudo: True
    file: path=/var/opt/tomcat_1/conf/Catalina/localhost state=directory owner=tomcat7 group=nogroup
    tags:
  • java_nodes
  • name: create symlink under tomcat_1/bin
    sudo: True
    file: src=/usr/share/tomcat7/bin/bootstrap.jar dest=/var/opt/tomcat_1/bin/bootstrap.jar owner=tomcat7 group=nogroup state=link
    tags:
  • java_nodes
  • name: create file structure for tomcat_2
    sudo: True
    file: path=/var/opt/tomcat_2/{{ item }} state=directory owner=tomcat7 group=nogroup
    with_items:
  • bin
  • conf
  • logs
  • temp
  • webapps
  • work
    tags:
  • java_nodes
  • name: create lib link
    file: src=/usr/share/tomcat7/lib dest=/var/opt/tomcat_2/lib state=link
    tags:
  • java_nodes
  • name: create deeper directory structure for tomcat_2
    sudo: True
    file: path=/var/opt/tomcat_2/conf/Catalina/localhost state=directory owner=tomcat7 group=nogroup
    tags:
  • java_nodes
  • name: create symlink under tomcat_2/bin
    sudo: True
    file: src=/usr/share/tomcat7/bin/bootstrap.jar dest=/var/opt/tomcat_2/bin/bootstrap.jar owner=tomcat7 group=nogroup state=link
    tags:
  • java_nodes

And I’m executing it from this playbook:

  • name: Install Oracle Java 7 and tomcat
    hosts: basic_java
    sudo: True
    roles:
  • java
  • { role: tomcat, tags: ‘wowza’ }

According to the documentation, that should be possible:

http://docs.ansible.com/playbooks_tags.html

You may also apply tags to roles:

roles:
  - { role: webserver, port: 5000, tags: [ 'web', 'foo' ] }

I have tried this a couple of different ways:

{ role: tomcat, tags: ‘wowza’ }

{ role: tomcat, tags: ‘wowza’, skip-tags ‘java_nodes’ }

{ role: tomcat, skip-tags: ‘java_nodes’ }

But they all execute the entire role.

I’m using Ansible 1.8.2, and running it from a mac, on Ubuntu nodes in Vagrant.

Am I incorrect in my interpretation of the documentation? Is this not an allowable way to use tags? And if so, is there a best practices way to achieve what I’m going for, here? I’d hate to have to create a second tomcat role - that seems inelegant.

Thank you, and I’m looking forward to your thoughts.

2

Did you try with the brackets, as indicated in the documentation you pasted in?

3

when you apply tags to roles, you actually ADD that tag to each task
in the role, there is no way to use tags in a role declaration to
select a subset of tasks.