how to use synchronize module to copy file to many servers

Question

I tried to find an example where I can pull a file from a serverA to a group of servers.
mygroup consists of 10 servers. need to copy that file over to those 10 servers. here is what I have but its not working exactly. I can do one to one copy no problem without the handlers part.

- hosts: serverA
  tasks:
- name: Transfer file from serverA to mygroup
  synchronize:
    src: /tmp/file.txt
    dest: /tmp/file.txt
    mode: pull

  handlers:
- name: to many servers
  delegate_to: $item
  with_items: ${groups.mygroup}

Answer 1

You should carefully read the documentation about how ansible works (what is host pattern, what is strategy, what is handler...).

Here's the answer to your question:

---
# Push mode (connect to xenial1 and rsync-push to other hosts)
- hosts: xenial-group:!xenial1
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
    - synchronize:
        src: /tmp/hello.txt
        dest: /tmp/hello.txt
      delegate_to: xenial1

# Pull mode (connect to other hosts and rsync-pull from xenial1)
- hosts: xenial1
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
    - synchronize:
        src: /tmp/hello.txt
        dest: /tmp/hello.txt
        mode: pull
      delegate_to: "{{ item }}"
      with_inventory_hostnames: xenial-group:!xenial1

Inventory:

[xenial-group]
xenial1 ansible_ssh_host=192.168.168.186 ansible_user=ubuntu ansible_ssh_extra_args='-o ForwardAgent=yes'
xenial2 ansible_ssh_host=192.168.168.187 ansible_user=ubuntu ansible_ssh_extra_args='-o ForwardAgent=yes'
xenial3 ansible_ssh_host=192.168.168.188 ansible_user=ubuntu ansible_ssh_extra_args='-o ForwardAgent=yes'

Keep in mind that synchronize is a wrapper for rsync, so for this setup to work, there must be ssh-connectivity between target hosts (usually you have ssh connection between control-host and target hosts). I use agent forwarding for this.