Ansible Roles and handlers - Cannot get role handlers to work - ansible

Question

I need to set up Apache/mod_wsgi in Centos 6.5 so my main YAML file is as such:
---
- hosts: dev
tasks:
- name: Updates yum installed packages
yum: name=* state=latest
- hosts: dev
roles:
- { role: apache }
This should update all yum-installed packages then execute the apache role.
The apache role is configured to install Apache/mod_wsgi, set Apache to start at boot time and restart it. The following are the contents of roles/apache/tasks/main.yml:
---
- name: Installs httpd and mod_wsgi
yum: name={{ item }} state=latest
with_items:
- httpd
- mod_wsgi
notify:
- enable httpd
- restart httpd
And the handlers in roles/apache/handlers/main.yml:
---
- name: enable httpd
service: name=httpd enabled=yes
- name: restart httpd
service: name=httpd state=restarted
The handlers do not seem to run since the following output is given when I execute the playbook:
PLAY [dev] ********************************************************************
GATHERING FACTS ***************************************************************
ok: [dev.example.com]
TASK: [Updates yum installed packages] ****************************************
ok: [dev.example.com]
PLAY [dev] ********************************************************************
GATHERING FACTS ***************************************************************
ok: [dev.example.com]
TASK: [apache | Installs httpd and mod_wsgi] **********************************
ok: [dev.example.com] => (item=httpd,mod_wsgi)
PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
dev.example.com : ok=4 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0
And when I vagrant ssh into the virtual machine, sudo service httpd status shows httpd is stopped and sudo chkconfig --list shows it has not been enabled to be started by init.
I'm just starting out with Ansible, so is there something obvious I could be missing?

Answer 1

Well, to answer my own question, I realized that there's a subtle point I missed:
http://docs.ansible.com/playbooks_intro.html#handlers-running-operations-on-change
Specifically, the notify signal is produced only if the task introduces a change. So for my use case I think I'll go with enabling and starting Apache in standalone tasks instead of relying on change signal handlers.