meta – Execute Ansible ‘actions’

• Synopsis
• Parameters
• Notes
• See Also
• Examples
• Status

Synopsis

• Meta tasks are a special kind of task which can influence Ansible internal execution or state.
• Prior to Ansible 2.0, the only meta option available was flush_handlers.
• As of Ansible 2.2, there are five meta tasks which can be used.
• Meta tasks can be used anywhere within your playbook.
• This module is also supported for Windows targets.

Parameters

Notes

See Also

Examples

# Example showing flushing handlers on demand, not at end of play
- template:
    src: new.j2
    dest: /etc/config.txt
  notify: myhandler

- name: Force all notified handlers to run at this point, not waiting for normal sync points
  meta: flush_handlers

# Example showing how to refresh inventory during play
- name: Reload inventory, useful with dynamic inventories when play makes changes to the existing hosts
  cloud_guest:            # this is fake module
    name: newhost
    state: present

- name: Refresh inventory to ensure new instances exist in inventory
  meta: refresh_inventory

# Example showing how to clear all existing facts of targetted hosts
- name: Clear gathered facts from all currently targeted hosts
  meta: clear_facts

# Example showing how to continue using a failed target
- name: Bring host back to play after failure
  copy:
    src: file
    dest: /etc/file
  remote_user: imightnothavepermission

- meta: clear_host_errors

# Example showing how to reset an existing connection
- user:
    name: '{{ ansible_user }}'
    groups: input

- name: Reset ssh connection to allow user changes to affect 'current login user'
  meta: reset_connection

# Example showing how to end the play for specific targets
- name: End the play for hosts that run CentOS 6
  meta: end_host
  when:
  - ansible_distribution == 'CentOS'
  - ansible_distribution_major_version == '6'

Status

• This module is not guaranteed to have a backwards compatible interface. [preview]
• This module is maintained by the Ansible Core Team. [core]

Red Hat Support

More information about Red Hat’s support of this module is available from this Red Hat Knowledge Base article.

Authors

• Ansible Core Team