Ansible - Run tasks on the control node

by
Jeremy Canfield |
Updated: January 26 2025
| Ansible articles
By default, certain tasks will be run on the Ansible control node (your server that Ansible is installed on) or on your target systems. For example:
- Lookup is run on the control node
- Modules are run on your managed nodes
There are different ways to modify this behavior. The following can be used to invoke a module on the control node (that's your Ansible server).
- local_action to run specific tasks on the control node
- delegate_to parameter to run specific tasks on the control node
- connection parameter or --connection command line option to run all tasks in a playbook or specific roles on the control node
Or, it you can set -hosts: localhost in your playbook to run the playbook against the control node.
---
- hosts: localhost
tasks:
- debug:
msg: Hello World
...
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