VMware inventory plugin allows you to filter VMware guests using the filters
configuration parameter.
This section shows how you configure filters
for the given VMware guest in the inventory.
To use the VMware dynamic inventory plugins, you must install pyVmomi on your control node (the host running Ansible).
To include tag-related information for the virtual machines in your dynamic inventory, you also need the vSphere Automation SDK, which supports REST API features such as tagging and content libraries, on your control node. You can install the vSphere Automation SDK
following these instructions.
$ pip install pyvmomi
Starting in Ansible 2.10, the VMware dynamic inventory plugin is available in the community.vmware
collection included Ansible. Alternately, to install the latest community.vmware
collection:
$ ansible-galaxy collection install community.vmware
To use this VMware dynamic inventory plugin:
ansible.cfg
file:[inventory] enable_plugins = community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
vmware.yml
or vmware.yaml
in your working directory.The vmware_vm_inventory
inventory plugin takes in the same authentication information as any other VMware modules does.
Let us assume we want to list all RHEL7 VMs with the power state as “poweredOn”. A valid inventory file with filters for the given VMware guest looks as follows:
plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory strict: False hostname: 10.65.223.31 username: [email protected] password: Esxi@123$% validate_certs: False with_tags: False hostnames: - config.name filters: - config.guestId == "rhel7_64Guest" - summary.runtime.powerState == "poweredOn"
Here, we have configured two filters -
config.guestId
is equal to rhel7_64Guest
summary.runtime.powerState
is equal to poweredOn
This retrieves all the VMs which satisfy these two conditions and populates them in the inventory. Notice that the conditions are combined using an and
operation.
or
conditions in filtersLet us assume you want filter RHEL7 and Ubuntu VMs. You can use multiple filters using or
condition in your inventory file.
A valid filter in the VMware inventory file for this example is:
plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory strict: False hostname: 10.65.223.31 username: [email protected] password: Esxi@123$% validate_certs: False with_tags: False hostnames: - config.name filters: - config.guestId == "rhel7_64Guest" or config.guestId == "ubuntu64Guest"
You can check all allowed properties for filters for the given virtual machine at Using Virtual machine attributes in VMware dynamic inventory plugin.
If you are using the properties
parameter with custom VM properties, make sure that you include all the properties used by filters as well in your VM property list.
For example, if we want all RHEL7 and Ubuntu VMs that are poweredOn, you can use inventory file:
plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory strict: False hostname: 10.65.223.31 username: [email protected] password: Esxi@123$% validate_certs: False with_tags: False hostnames: - 'config.name' properties: - 'config.name' - 'config.guestId' - 'guest.ipAddress' - 'summary.runtime.powerState' filters: - config.guestId == "rhel7_64Guest" or config.guestId == "ubuntu64Guest" - summary.runtime.powerState == "poweredOn"
Here, we are using minimum VM properties, that is config.name
, config.guestId
, summary.runtime.powerState
, and guest.ipAddress
.
config.name
is used by the hostnames
parameter.config.guestId
and summary.runtime.powerState
are used by the filters
parameter.guest.guestId
is used by ansible_host
internally by the inventory plugin.Let us assume you want filter VMs with specific IP range. You can use regular expression in filters
in your inventory file.
For example, if we want all RHEL7 and Ubuntu VMs that are poweredOn, you can use inventory file:
plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory strict: False hostname: 10.65.223.31 username: [email protected] password: Esxi@123$% validate_certs: False with_tags: False hostnames: - 'config.name' properties: - 'config.name' - 'config.guestId' - 'guest.ipAddress' - 'summary.runtime.powerState' filters: - guest.ipAddress is defined and guest.ipAddress is match('192.168.*')
Here, we are using guest.ipAddress
VM property. This property is optional and depended upon VMware tools installed on VMs. We are using match
to validate the regular expression for the given IP range.
Executing ansible-inventory --list -i <filename>.vmware.yml
creates a list of the virtual machines that are ready to be configured using Ansible.
You will notice that the inventory hosts are filtered depending on your filters
section.
{ "_meta": { "hostvars": { "template_001": { "config.name": "template_001", "config.guestId": "ubuntu64Guest", ... "guest.toolsStatus": "toolsNotInstalled", "summary.runtime.powerState": "poweredOn", }, "vm_8046": { "config.name": "vm_8046", "config.guestId": "rhel7_64Guest", ... "guest.toolsStatus": "toolsNotInstalled", "summary.runtime.powerState": "poweredOn", }, ... }
If the custom property specified in filters
fails:
strict: True
to get more information about the error.See also
The GitHub Page of pyVmomi
The issue tracker for the pyVmomi project
The GitHub Page of vSphere Automation SDK for Python
The issue tracker for vSphere Automation SDK for Python
Using Virtual machine attributes in VMware dynamic inventory plugin
An introduction to playbooks
Using Vault in playbooks
© 2012–2018 Michael DeHaan
© 2018–2019 Red Hat, Inc.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.10/scenario_guides/vmware_scenarios/vmware_inventory_filters.html