Intended behavior of variable expansion in role handlers?

[luciano.c...@gmail.com]

Greetings,

I found an unexpected behavior when role variables, with default values defined, are overwritten by role parameters in the playbook. I would like to confirm whether its a bug or working as designed before opening an issue on github.

Here is the test case. I have defined a role to configure multiple instances of a given service. Whenever the instance configuration changes, I need to reload that specific instance informing the path of its configuration file.

roles/some_role/defaults.yml:
instance_name: "default"
instance_conf_file: "/etc/servicename-{{instance_name}}.conf"
instance_param1: "some value"
instance_param2: "some other value"

roles/some_role/tasks.yml:
- template:
    dest: {{instance_conf_file}}
    src: some_role_conf.j2
  notify:
    - reload conf

roles/some_role/handers.yml:
- name: reload conf
  command: some command to reload  {{instance_name}} {{instance_conf_file}}

In the main playbook, I call the role multiple times with different values for instance parameters, like this:

- hosts: all
  roles:
    # first instance "default"
    - role: some_role

    # second instance
    - role: some_role
      instance_name: "i2"
      instance_param1: "abc"

   # third instance
    - role: some_role
      instance_name: "i3"
      instance_param1: "xyz"
    
When configuration of either "i2" or 'i3" is modified, notification to "reload conf" actually goes to handler of first instance (variables in "reload conf" are filled with default values).

I would expect that, like for tasks, variables in role/handlers.yml were evaluated considering the current role environment.

Should I open a bug or this is the intended behavior? If this is the intended behavior, are there any other means to pass instance parameters to handlers?

Any help is appreciated.

Best regards,

[Kai Stian Olstad]

Handlers only run once no mater how many times they are notified and
handlers run is triggered after all the roles is finished.

> Should I open a bug or this is the intended behavior? If this is the
> intended behavior, are there any other means to pass instance
> parameters to
> handlers?

Since handlers is special passing parameters to it is not trivial.

You could instead have "register: result" on the template instead of
notify and just have command as a regular task with this added "when:
result is changed"

--
Kai Stian Olstad