Mastering Ansible

We can clearly see the relative reference to paths and how they are relative to the
file referencing them. When using roles there are some additional relative path
assumptions, however we'll cover that in detail in a later chapter.
Play behavior keys
When Ansible parses a play, there are a few keys it looks for to define various
behaviors for a play. These keys are written at the same level as hosts: key.
Here are the keys that can be used:
Chapter 1
• any_errors_fatal: This Boolean key is used to instruct Ansible to treat any
failure as a fatal error to prevent any further tasks from being attempted.
This changes the default where Ansible will continue until all the tasks are
complete or all the hosts have failed.
• connection: This string key defines which connection system to use for
a given play. A common choice to make here is local, which instructs
Ansible to do all the operations locally, but with the context of the system
from the inventory.
• gather_facts: This Boolean key controls whether or not Ansible will perform
the fact gathering phase of operation, where a special task will run on a host
to discover various facts about the system. Skipping fact gathering, when you
are sure that you do not need any of the discovered data, can be a significant
time saver in a larger environment.
• max_fail_percentage: This number key is similar to any_errors_fatal, but
is more fine-grained. This allows you to define just what percentage of your
hosts can fail before the whole operation is halted.
• no_log: This is a Boolean key to control whether or not Ansible will log
(to the screen and/or a configured log file) the command given or the
results received from a task. This is important if your task or return deal
with secrets. This key can also be applied to a task directly.
• port: This is a number key to define what port SSH (or an other remote
connection plugin) should use to connect unless otherwise configured
in the inventory data.
• remote_user: This is a string key that defines which user to log in with on
the remote system. The default is to connect as the same user that ansibleplaybook
was started with.
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