Always trigger handler execution in Ansible

ansible

I'm using Ansible to provision my development server.

I want it to always start some services for me. I have handlers for this purpose but what is the best way to trigger handler execution without condition, e.g. make it always work?

Something like this:

tasks:
    - name: Trigger handler
      run_handler: name=nginx-restart

Best Answer

If you absolutely need to trigger a handler every time then here are two options:

1) run a noop shell command which will always report as changed

-  name: trigger nginx-restart
   command: /bin/true
   notify: nginx-restart

2) use debug along with changed_when: to trigger a handler

-  debug: msg="trigger nginx-restart"
   notify: nginx-restart
   changed_when: true

Also of note for Option 1 and Check Mode: You may want to use check_mode: no if using Ansible version 2.2 or higher or always_run: yes if using earlier versions than that so that the task does not get skipped over in check mode. From my manual testing it looks like the handlers remain in check mode, but please be careful as your case may differ.

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