Ansible skip remaining tasks in playbook on condition

Question

I am new to Ansible and have to update existing playbook tasks. Initially, there are 2 tasks to copy yml variable values to files - this runs in a loop per each cert and keys values. I want if the copy tasks are not changed - basically if the content is same the files are not overwritten, then the remaining tasks in the playbook should not be executed.

    - name: Copy cert files
      copy:
        content: "{{item.value}}"
        dest: /home/copyTest/dest/{{item.key}}.crt
        owner: test
        group: test
        mode: 0644
      with_dict: '{{certs_dict}}'
    - name: Copy key files
      copy:
        content: "{{item.value}}"
        dest: /home/copyTest/dest/{{item.key}}.key
        owner: test
        group: test
        mode: 0644
      with_dict: "{{keys_dict}}"
    - name: Stop server
        ...
        ...

If both these copy tasks results are unchanged, i.e, none of certs and keys files are unchanged, then the further tasks(Stop server, Start server, etc.) should not be executed.

Possible duplicate of [How do I exit Ansible playbook without error on a condition](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36451793/how-do-i-exit-ansible-playbook-without-error-on-a-condition) — Jack, Apr 10 '19 at 12:54

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 10 '19 at 11:24

Use the register keyword to store the results of your first two tasks:

- name: Copy cert files
  copy:
    content: "{{item.value}}"
    dest: /home/copyTest/dest/{{item.key}}.crt
    owner: test
    group: test
    mode: 0644
  with_dict: '{{certs_dict}}'
  register: cert_results

- name: Copy key files
  copy:
    content: "{{item.value}}"
    dest: /home/copyTest/dest/{{item.key}}.key
    owner: test
    group: test
    mode: 0644
  with_dict: "{{keys_dict}}"
  register: key_results

Place you remaining tasks in a separate task list file, and then in your main playbook conditionally include those additional tasks only if there were changes:

- include_tasks: additional_tasks.yml
  when: cert_results is changed or key_results is changed

You can read about including tasks here.

You can achieve something similar using a block in your playbook:

- when: cert_results is changed or key_results is changed
  block:
    - name: Stop server

    - name: Do something else

    ...

You can read about blocks here.

Thank you @larsks works perfect. I went with the block: approach and it works perfectly. Thanks again for such a quick answer — Xavier DSouza, Apr 11 '19 at 05:24

Ansible skip remaining tasks in playbook on condition

1 Answers1