Make Ansible reboot remote hosts and wait for them to return

ansible-reboot-and-wait.yaml

---
- name: Reboot a host and wait for it to return
  hosts: somehost
  remote_user: root
  tasks:
    # Send the reboot command
    - shell: shutdown -r now

    # This pause is mandatory, otherwise the existing control connection gets reused!
    - pause: seconds=30

    # Now we will run a local 'ansible -m ping' on this host until it returns.
    # This works with the existing ansible hosts inventory and so any custom ansible_ssh_hosts definitions are being used
    - local_action: shell ansible -u {{ ansible_user_id }} -m ping {{ inventory_hostname }}
      register: result
      until: result.rc == 0
      retries: 30
      delay: 10

    # And finally, execute 'uptime' when the host is back.
    - shell: uptime

Thank you for posting this solution. This works better than wait_for when rebooting servers in parallel.

David

Does this still work if you have optimised the ansible config to increase the control connection timeout? The default is 60s I believe, but usually I increase it to 30 minutes to speed up the script application.

it will be fine if system is static IP, but, in DHCP, IP address may get change

perfect solution for my case :) thank you very much

Hi, I have a situation where I'm installing an application package in remote server and system automatically reboot as a part of installation process as opposed to control reboot. I'm using command module to install application package. Tried to use pause, wait_for, wait_for_connection nothing works. Wondering if you have any suggestions.

From Ansible 2.7 you can use reboot module https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/modules/reboot_module.html

wait_for_connection works better than the local command, and using shell: "(sleep 2 && shutdown -r now) &" it makes sure that ansible doesnt bail out due to ssh connection dying

I am running ansible version 2.9.6 and the above playbook yaml is giving errors - probably because of the version. I am trying to do a reboot of multiple servers. I've read documentation but am still getting errors on the syntax:

• name: Reboot servers
• hosts: all
• remote_user: root
  tasks:
• shell: /sbin/reboot

Running a --check is giving me a syntax error on the line tasks. It is hard to tell whether every line needs a - in front or whether I have this in the wrong order. I am going into this completely blinding and haven't used ansible before. Thanks for any help.

I am running ansible version 2.9.6 and the above playbook yaml is giving errors - probably because of the version. I am trying to do a reboot of multiple servers. I've read documentation but am still getting errors on the syntax:

* name: Reboot servers

* hosts: all

* remote_user: root
  tasks:

* shell: /sbin/reboot

Running a --check is giving me a syntax error on the line tasks. It is hard to tell whether every line needs a - in front or whether I have this in the wrong order. I am going into this completely blinding and haven't used ansible before. Thanks for any help.

Please use a code block to show your code, because indentation matters and it got removed by github

Sorry the * should be a hyphen and I have one space between the hyphen and the name. I also have one space between the colon and the description. I will google how to use a code block meanwhile.

This code is outdated; see comments for better options, most notablly https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/reboot_module.html

Thanks, yes I did see that. Based on that, I tried:

- hosts: all
- name: rebooting servers
reboot:

And I get this:

ERROR! Syntax Error while loading YAML.
did not find expected '-' indicator

The offending line appears to be:

• name: rebooting servers
  reboot:
  ^ here

I apologize in advance if my block code above doesn't work

tasks:
  - name: Reboot the server
    reboot:

  - pause:
      prompt: "Need delay for restart"
      seconds: 30