ansible.service(3) - Linux man page

Name

service - Manage services.

Controls services on remote hosts.

arguments

Additional arguments provided on the command line
enabled: Whether the service should start on boot. Choices: yes,no.
name Name of the service.(required)
pattern: If the service does not respond to the status command, name a substring to look for as would be found in the output of the ps command as a stand-in for a status result. If the string is found, the service will be assumed to be running.(Added in Ansible version 0.7.)
state started/stopped are idempotent actions that will not run commands unless necessary. restarted will always bounce the service. reloaded will always reload. Choices: started,stopped,restarted,reloaded.."

Example action to start service httpd, if not running

service: name=httpd state=started

Example action to stop service httpd, if running

service: name=httpd state=stopped

Example action to restart service httpd, in all cases

service: name=httpd state=restarted

Example action to reload service httpd, in all cases

service: name=httpd state=reloaded

Example action to start service foo, based on running process /usr/bin/foo

service: name=foo pattern=/usr/bin/foo state=started

Example action to restart network service for interface eth0

service: name=network state=restarted args=eth0

Michael DeHaan