Ansible: Perform Cleanup on Task Failure

Question

I'm currently writing an Ansible play that follows this general format and is run via a cron job:

pre_tasks:   -Configuration / package installation  tasks:   -Work with installed packages  post_tasks:   -Cleanup / uninstall packages 

The problem with the above is that sometimes a command in the tasks section fails, and when it does the post_tasks section doesn't run, leaving the system in a messy state. Is it possible to force the commands in post_tasks to run even if a failure or fatal error occurs?

My current approach is to apply ignore_errors: yes to everything under the tasks section, and then apply a when: conditional to each task to individually check if the prior command succeeded.

This solution seems like a hack, but it gets worse because even with ignore_errors: yes set, if a Fatal error is encountered for a task the entire play will still immediately fail, so I have to also run a cron'd bash script to manually check on things after reach play execution.

All I want is a guarantee that even if tasks fails, post_tasks will still run. I'm sure there is a way to do this without resorting to bash script wrappers.

Answer 1

This feature became available in Ansible 2.0:

This is the documentation for the new stanza markers block, rescue, and always.

Answer 2

You should use handlers (http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_intro.html) and set:

force_handlers: true

Please give a look to KubeNow's integration test (https://github.com/kubenow/KubeNow/blob/master/test/integration-test.yml).