How to reload Firewalld service using Ansible? - ansible

Question

I added some rule to firewalld in centos 7 with ansible. But I must reload firewalld daemon thus service work properly. Is there any idea?
Here is my ansible code:
- name: Add port to firewalld
firewalld:
port: "{{ item }}"
permanent: yes
state: enabled
when: ansible_distribution == 'CentOS' or ansible_distribution == 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux'
loop:
- 8080/tcp
- 8000/tcp
- 8090/tcp
- 8040/tcp

Answer 1

First of all use with_items for list of ports as below:
- name: Add port to firewalld
firewalld:
port: "{{ item }}"
permanent: yes
state: enabled
when: ansible_distribution == 'CentOS' or ansible_distribution == 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux'
loop:
- 8080/tcp
- 8000/tcp
- 8090/tcp
- 8040/tcp
You can also use the below code to enter ports if they are not fixed and use its as a variable:
- hosts: localhost
gather_facts: no
vars_prompt:
- name: ports
prompt: "Enter port(s) number"
private: no
tasks:
- name: add port
firewalld:
service: "{{ item }}"
permanent: yes
immediate: yes
state: enabled
with_items: "{{ ports.split(',') }}"
and regarding reloading firewalld its mentioned here we can't reload firewalld using state parameter So use systemd module as below:
- name: reload service firewalld
systemd:
name: firewalld
state: reloaded

Answer 2

firewalld module has immediate option which is performing the same reload within firewall-cmd cli tool.
- name: Add port to firewalld
firewalld:
port: "{{ item }}"
permanent: yes
state: enabled
immediate: true

Answer 3

You can use service or systemd module.
#Supports init systems include BSD init, OpenRC, SysV, Solaris SMF, systemd, upstart.
- name: Restart service
service:
name: firewalld
state: restarted
#Controls systemd services on remote hosts.
- name: Restart service
systemd:
state: restarted
daemon_reload: yes
name: firewalld

Answer 4

I'm a bit late but given that all previous answers seem to just speculate I will give another input. Firewalld is not reloaded with 'service' or 'systemctl' commands but rather with it's own specific command:
firewall-cmd --reload
This is because that way you can load new rules without interrupting any active network connections as would be the case when using iptables directly.
Given this I think using service or systemctl is not a good solution.
So if you just want to create a task I suggest using the command module from ansible to execute this command. Or you could write a handler like so:
- name: reload firewalld
command: firewall-cmd --reload
Just put the handler in the handlers/main.yml file inside your role. Then in your tasks you can call that handler with:
notify: reload firewalld
That way Ansible only executes the handler at the end of your Ansible run. I successfully tested this on RHEL7.

Answer 5

If you are using permanent conditional, you can use immediate option.
Example:
- name: Apply Base Services
ansible.posix.firewalld:
service: "{{ item }}"
state: enabled
zone: public
permanent: yes
immediate: true
loop:
- http
- https
After this rule will applied, firewalld will reload automatically.

Answer 6

You already got a number of excellent answers. There is yet another possible approach (although the reloading part is the same as in cstoll's answer).
If you are certain that nobody and nothing else but Ansible will ever manipulate firewalld rules, you can use a template to directly generate the zone XML files in /etc/firewalld/zones . You will still need to add
notify: reload firewalld
and the corresponding handler, as in cstoll's answer.
The main advantage of this approach is that it can be dramatically faster and simpler than adding the rules one at a time.
The drawback of this approach is that it will not preserve any rules added to firewalld outside of Ansible. A second drawback is that it will not do any error checking; you can create invalid zone files easily. The firewall-cmd command (and thus the firewalld module) will verify the validity of each rule. For instance, it checks that zones do not overlap.