ansible.builtin.pause module – Pause playbook execution

Note

This module is part of ansible-core and included in all Ansible installations. In most cases, you can use the short module name pause even without specifying the collections keyword. However, we recommend you use the Fully Qualified Collection Name (FQCN) ansible.builtin.pause for easy linking to the module documentation and to avoid conflicting with other collections that may have the same module name.

Synopsis

  • Pauses playbook execution for a set amount of time, or until a prompt is acknowledged. All parameters are optional. The default behavior is to pause with a prompt.
  • To pause/wait/sleep per host, use the ansible.builtin.wait_for module.
  • You can use ctrl+c if you wish to advance a pause earlier than it is set to expire or if you need to abort a playbook run entirely. To continue early press ctrl+c and then c. To abort a playbook press ctrl+c and then a.
  • Prompting for a set amount of time is not supported. Pausing playbook execution is interruptible but does not return user input.
  • The pause module integrates into async/parallelized playbooks without any special considerations (see Rolling Updates). When using pauses with the serial playbook parameter (as in rolling updates) you are only prompted once for the current group of hosts.
  • This module is also supported for Windows targets.

Note

This module has a corresponding action plugin.

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

echo

boolean

Controls whether or not keyboard input is shown when typing.

Only has effect if seconds=None and minutes=None.

Choices:

  • false
  • true ← (default)

minutes

string

A positive number of minutes to pause for.

prompt

string

Optional text to use for the prompt message.

User input is only returned if seconds=None and minutes=None, otherwise this is just a custom message before playbook execution is paused.

seconds

string

A positive number of seconds to pause for.

Attributes

Attribute

Support

Description

action

Support: full

Indicates this has a corresponding action plugin so some parts of the options can be executed on the controller

async

Support: none

Supports being used with the async keyword

become

Support: none

Is usable alongside become keywords

bypass_host_loop

Support: full

Forces a ‘global’ task that does not execute per host, this bypasses per host templating and serial, throttle and other loop considerations

Conditionals will work as if run_once is being used, variables used will be from the first available host

This action will not work normally outside of lockstep strategies

check_mode

Support: full

Can run in check_mode and return changed status prediction without modifying target, if not supported the action will be skipped.

connection

Support: none

Uses the target’s configured connection information to execute code on it

delegation

Support: none

Can be used in conjunction with delegate_to and related keywords

diff_mode

Support: none

Will return details on what has changed (or possibly needs changing in check_mode), when in diff mode

platform

Platforms: all

Target OS/families that can be operated against

Notes

Note

  • Starting in 2.2, if you specify 0 or negative for minutes or seconds, it will wait for 1 second, previously it would wait indefinitely.
  • User input is not captured or echoed, regardless of echo setting, when minutes or seconds is specified.

Examples

- name: Pause for 5 minutes to build app cache
  ansible.builtin.pause:
    minutes: 5

- name: Pause until you can verify updates to an application were successful
  ansible.builtin.pause:

- name: A helpful reminder of what to look out for post-update
  ansible.builtin.pause:
    prompt: "Make sure org.foo.FooOverload exception is not present"

- name: Pause to get some sensitive input
  ansible.builtin.pause:
    prompt: "Enter a secret"
    echo: no

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key

Description

delta

string

Time paused in seconds

Returned: always

Sample: "2"

echo

boolean

Value of echo setting

Returned: always

Sample: true

start

string

Time when started pausing

Returned: always

Sample: "2017-02-23 14:35:07.298862"

stdout

string

Output of pause module

Returned: always

Sample: "Paused for 0.04 minutes"

stop

string

Time when ended pausing

Returned: always

Sample: "2017-02-23 14:35:09.552594"

user_input

string

User input from interactive console

Returned: if no waiting time set

Sample: "Example user input"

Authors

  • Tim Bielawa (@tbielawa)

© 2012–2018 Michael DeHaan
© 2018–2024 Red Hat, Inc.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/pause_module.html