How to update CentOS/RHEL using Ansible?

- name: check packages for updates
  shell: yum list updates | awk 'f;/Updated Packages/{f=1;}' | awk '{ print $1 }'
  changed_when: updates.stdout_lines | length > 0
  args:
    warn: false
  register: updates

- name: display count
  debug:
    msg: "Found {{ updates.stdout_lines | length }} packages to be updated:\n\n{{ updates.stdout }}"

- when: updates.stdout_lines | length > 0
  block:
    - name: install updates using yum
      yum:
        name: "*"
        state: latest

    - name: install yum-utils
      package:
        name: yum-utils

    - name: check if reboot is required
      shell: needs-restarting -r
      failed_when: false
      register: reboot_required
      changed_when: false

- when: updates.stdout_lines | length > 0 and reboot_required.rc != 0
  block:
    - name: reboot the server if required
      shell: sleep 3; reboot
      ignore_errors: true
      changed_when: false
      async: 1
      poll: 0

    - name: wait for server to come back after reboot
      wait_for_connection:
        timeout: 600
        delay: 20
      register: reboot_result

    - name: reboot time
      debug:
        msg: "The system rebooted in {{ reboot_result.elapsed }} seconds."

Comments ( 14 )

• 

  MarcV Jun 11 , 2018 at 11:16 /

  Very useful! Thanks a lot!

  I have been searching for an elegant and simple solution for this as Red Hat is failing to solve this properly.

  On Debian systems it is quit easy to establish if a server needs a reboot but on Red Hat servers it is very difficult to determine if they need a reboot.

• 

  Grant Nov 05 , 2018 at 16:57 /

  When I try running this I get: ERROR! ‘shell’ is not a valid attribute for a Play

• 

  luktom Nov 05 , 2018 at 18:16 /

  As I mentioned in the post, these are only tasks for a playbook, so you have to add them under “tasks:” section in your playbook or in a role.

• 

  david Ge Feb 01 , 2019 at 20:55 /

  there is a reboot module you should look into – it can reboot a machine more nicely than the last stanza on this page.
  https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/modules/reboot_module.html

• 

  luktom Feb 01 , 2019 at 21:11 /

  You’re right :) The thing is that it was introduced in Ansible 2.7 which was GA in October 2018 and my post is from April 2018 :)

• 

  Anand R Mar 19 , 2019 at 05:08 /

  Got it what I searched for. Thanks !

• 

  Michael Mar 27 , 2019 at 03:51 /

  luktom,

  Do you have a playbook that would upgrade rhel 6 to rhel 7?

• 

  luktom Apr 01 , 2019 at 13:34 /

  Hi, I don’t have ready-to-go playbook, however it looks pretty easy to automate if you follow the docs here: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_gluster_storage/3.4/html/installation_guide/rhel6_to_rhel7

• 

  Michael Walter Kuhlman Apr 02 , 2019 at 06:05 /

  luktom,

  Would you be able to automate this for me? I can pay you.
  : https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_gluster_storage/3.4/html/installation_guide/rhel6_to_rhel7

  Regards
  Mike

• 

  Abiding Dude Jul 09 , 2019 at 19:26 /

  a thousand thankyous!

• 

  Poil Oct 30 , 2019 at 08:51 /

  Hi,

  Thanks,

  On the shell task I always add this to be sure my locale system is always in english to parse the command output.

  environment:
  LC_ALL: C

• 

  Nico Feb 05 , 2021 at 11:53 /

  Thanks for this. It works perfectly

• 

  Gurudatta Jun 01 , 2021 at 09:15 /

  How can we use –broken with the

  – name: install updates using yum
  yum:
  name: “*”

• 

  Aske Feb 15 , 2023 at 14:07 /

  Can see the
  “args
  warn: false”
  for “changed_when” has been deprecated now when i use it in a playbook.
  what was it set false to warn for in the first place?
  never experienced this to warn about anything when i tried to remove it, and now it only works without this arg.