diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index f257512..fbb3ece 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -24,6 +24,10 @@ The MySQL root user account password.
 
 Whether MySQL should be enabled on startup.
 
+    overwrite_global_mycnf: yes
+
+Whether the global my.cnf should be overwritten each time ansible runs.  "no" will only create the file if it doesn't exist.
+
     mysql_databases: []
 
 The MySQL databases to create. A database has the values `name`, `encoding` (defaults to `utf8`), `collation` (defaults to `utf8_general_ci`) and `replicate` (defaults to `1`, only used if replication is configured). The formats of these are the same as in the `mysql_db` module.
diff --git a/defaults/main.yml b/defaults/main.yml
index 993f3a3..d373ff6 100644
--- a/defaults/main.yml
+++ b/defaults/main.yml
@@ -5,6 +5,9 @@ mysql_root_password: root
 
 mysql_enabled_on_startup: yes
 
+# update my.cnf. each time role is run? yes | no
+overwrite_global_mycnf: yes
+
 # Pass in a comma-separated list of repos to use (e.g. "remi,epel"). Used only
 # for RedHat systems (and derivatives).
 mysql_enablerepo: ""
diff --git a/tasks/configure.yml b/tasks/configure.yml
index a0e8b18..f2bb5a6 100644
--- a/tasks/configure.yml
+++ b/tasks/configure.yml
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
     owner: root
     group: root
     mode: 0644
+    force: "{{ overwrite_global_mycnf }}"
   notify: restart mysql
 
 - name: Ensure MySQL is started and enabled on boot.