EX294 Coordinate rolling updates Practice Question
A company wants to implement a rolling update for a stateful application where hosts cannot be updated in parallel due to data consistency. They also need to ensure that if any host fails, the entire update is rolled back. Which strategy meets these requirements?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse `serial: 1` with `serial: 0` or think `max_fail_percentage: 0` alone triggers a rollback, but `any_errors_fatal` is required to abort the entire playbook immediately on any failure, not just stop the current batch.
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 serial: 1 and any_errors_fatal: yes
Setting `serial: 1` ensures hosts are updated one at a time, preventing parallel updates that could break data consistency for a stateful application. Adding `any_errors_fatal: yes` causes the entire playbook run to abort immediately if any host fails, which satisfies the requirement for a full rollback on failure.
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 serial: 2 and any_errors_fatal: yes
Why it's wrong here
Two hosts may update in parallel, violating requirement.
- ✗
Use serial: 1 and ignore_errors: yes
Why it's wrong here
ignore_errors would continue despite failures, not stopping for rollback.
- ✗
Use serial: 0 and max_fail_percentage: 0
Why it's wrong here
serial: 0 updates all at once, violating the parallel restriction.
- ✓
Use serial: 1 and any_errors_fatal: yes
Why this is correct
Serial: 1 forces strictly sequential host updates, preventing parallel changes that would corrupt shared stateful data. Any_errors_fatal: yes aborts the entire play on the first failure, triggering rollback rather than leaving remaining hosts partially updated, meeting both the consistency and rollback constraints.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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