200-901 Infrastructure and Automation Practice Question
An engineer uses Ansible to push a configuration change to 100 switches. The playbook fails on 5 switches. What is the most efficient way to apply the change only to those 5?
⚠ Common exam trap
Cisco often tests the distinction between host-level filtering (`--limit`) and task-level filtering (`--tags`/`--skip-tags`), leading candidates to confuse `--skip-tags` as a way to skip hosts instead of tasks.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Use Ansible's --limit with the retry file
Ansible generates a retry file by default when a playbook fails on some hosts. Using `--limit @<retry-file>` re-runs the playbook only against the failed hosts, avoiding unnecessary execution on the 95 successful switches. This is the most efficient method because it targets only the problematic devices without manual intervention or full re-runs.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Use Ansible's --limit with the retry file
Why this is correct
Ansible writes failed hosts to a retry file, and --limit accepts that file to target only those hosts. This satisfies the requirement to reapply the change to the five failed switches without rerunning the playbook against all 100.
- ✗
Use --skip-tags on successful hosts
Why it's wrong here
--skip-tags filters tasks by tag, not hosts; it cannot select the 5 failed switches, and successful hosts would still be targeted. It tempts because tag filtering feels like host selection, but the correct approach limits the play to failed hosts via a retry file or --limit.
- ✗
Re-run the playbook on all switches
Why it's wrong here
Re-running against all 100 switches reapplies changes to the 95 already-configured devices, risking duplicate configuration and wasted runtime. It tempts because idempotent modules make full re-runs harmless in simple cases, but the stem asks specifically to target only the 5 failed hosts.
- ✗
Manually configure the 5 switches
Why it's wrong here
Manually configuring five switches discards Ansible's inventory and idempotency, risking drift and typos, and does not scale. It tempts when only a handful of hosts remain. The efficient route is re-running the playbook against a limited inventory or retry file containing just those five hosts.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 200-901 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Cisco certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 200-901 exam.