Run an Ansible handler only once for the entire playbook - ansible

Question

I would like to run a handler only once in an entire playbook.
I attempted using an include statement in the following in the playbook file, but this resulted in the handler being run multiple times, once for each play:
- name: Configure common config
hosts: all
become: true
vars:
OE: "{{ ansible_hostname[5] }}"
roles:
- { role: common }
handlers:
- include: handlers/main.yml
- name: Configure metadata config
hosts: metadata
become: true
vars:
OE: "{{ ansible_hostname[5] }}"
roles:
- { role: metadata }
handlers:
- include: handlers/main.yml
Here is the content of handlers/main.yml:
- name: restart autofs
service:
name: autofs.service
state: restarted
Here is an example of one of the tasks that notifies the handler:
- name: Configure automount - /opt/local/xxx in /etc/auto.direct
lineinfile:
dest: /etc/auto.direct
regexp: "^/opt/local/xxx"
line: "/opt/local/xxx -acdirmin=0,acdirmax=0,rdirplus,rw,hard,intr,bg,retry=2 nfs_server:/vol/xxx"
notify: restart autofs
How can I get the playbook to only execute the handler once for the entire playbook?

Answer 1

The answer
The literal answer to the question in the title is: no.
Playbook is a list of plays. Playbook has no namespace, no variables, no state. All the configuration, logic, and tasks are defined in plays.
Handler is a task with a different calling schedule (not sequential, but conditional, once at the end of a play, or triggered by the meta: flush_handlers task).
A handler belongs to a play, not a playbook, and there is no way to trigger it outside of the play (i.e. at the end of the playbook).
Solution
The solution to the problem is possible without referring to handlers.
You can use group_by module to create an ad-hoc group based on the result of the tasks at the bottom of each play.
Then you can define a separate play at the end of the playbook restarting the service on targets belonging to the above ad-hoc group.
Refer to the below stub for the idea:
- hosts: all
roles:
# roles declaration
tasks:
- # an example task modifying Nginx configuration
register: nginx_configuration
# ... other tasks ...
- name: the last task in the play
group_by:
key: hosts_to_restart_{{ 'nginx' if nginx_configuration is changed else '' }}
# ... other plays ...
- hosts: hosts_to_restart_nginx
gather_facts: no
tasks:
- service:
name: nginx
state: restarted

Answer 2

Possible solution
Use handlers to add hosts to in-memory inventory. Then add play to run restart service only for these hosts.
See this example:
If task is changed, it notify mark to restart to set fact, that host needs service restart.
Second handler add host is quite special, because add_host task only run once for whole play even in handler, see also documentation. But if notified, it will run after marking is done implied from handlers order.
Handler loops over hosts on which tasks were run and check if host service needs restart, if yes, add to special hosts_to_restart group.
Because facts are persistent across plays, notify third handler clear mark for affected hosts.
A lot of lines you hide with moving handlers to separate file and include them.
inventory file
10.1.1.[1:10]
[primary]
10.1.1.1
10.1.1.5
test.yml
---
- hosts: all
gather_facts: no
tasks:
- name: Random change to notify trigger
debug: msg="test"
changed_when: "1|random == 1"
notify:
- mark to restart
- add host
- clear mark
handlers:
- name: mark to restart
set_fact: restart_service=true
- name: add host
add_host:
name: "{{item}}"
groups: "hosts_to_restart"
when: hostvars[item].restart_service is defined and hostvars[item].restart_service
with_items: "{{ansible_play_batch}}"
- name: clear mark
set_fact: restart_service=false
- hosts: primary
gather_facts: no
tasks:
- name: Change to notify trigger
debug: msg="test"
changed_when: true
notify:
- mark to restart
- add host
- clear mark
handlers:
- name: mark to restart
set_fact: restart_service=true
- name: add host
add_host:
name: "{{item}}"
groups: "hosts_to_restart"
when: hostvars[item].restart_service is defined and hostvars[item].restart_service
with_items: "{{ansible_play_batch}}"
- name: clear mark
set_fact: restart_service=false
- hosts: hosts_to_restart
gather_facts: no
tasks:
- name: Restart service
debug: msg="Service restarted"
changed_when: true

Answer 3

A handler triggered in post_tasks will run after everything else. And the handler can be set to run_once: true.

Answer 4

It's not clear to me what your handler should do. Anyway, as for official documentation, handlers
are triggered at the end of each block of tasks in a play,
and will only be triggered once even if notified by multiple different
tasks [...] As of Ansible 2.2, handlers can also “listen” to generic topics, and tasks can notify those topics as follows:
So handlers are notified / executed once for each block of tasks.
May be you get your goal just keeping handlers after "all" target hosts, but it doesn't seem a clean use of handlers.
.