vmware.vmware.vm_advanced_settings module – Manages the advanced settings for a VM

Note

This module is part of the vmware.vmware collection (version 2.4.0).

You might already have this collection installed if you are using the ansible package. It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install vmware.vmware.

To use it in a playbook, specify: vmware.vmware.vm_advanced_settings.

Synopsis

  • Manages the advanced settings for a VM.

  • Changing advanced settings can cause instability for the VM. Be careful when removing or updating existing settings.

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

datacenter

aliases: datacenter_name

string

The name of the datacenter to search for the VM.

This is only used if folder is also used.

folder

string

Destination folder, absolute or relative path to find an existing guest.

Should be the full folder path, with or without the ‘datacenter/vm/’ prefix

For example ‘datacenter_name/vm/path/to/folder’ or ‘path/to/folder’

folder_paths_are_absolute

boolean

If true, any folder path parameters are treated as absolute paths.

If false, modules will try to intelligently determine if the path is absolute or relative.

This option is useful when your environment has a complex folder structure. By default, modules will try to intelligently determine if the path is absolute or relative. They may mistakenly prepend the datacenter name or other folder names, and this option can be used to avoid this.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

hostname

string

The hostname or IP address of the vSphere vCenter server.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_HOST will be used instead.

moid

string

Managed Object ID of the instance to manage if known, this is a unique identifier only within a single vCenter instance.

This is required if name or uuid is not supplied.

name

string

Name of the virtual machine to work with.

Virtual machine names in vCenter are not necessarily unique, which may be problematic, see name_match.

This is required if moid or uuid is not supplied.

name_match

string

If multiple virtual machines matching the name, use the first or last found.

Choices:

  • "first" ← (default)

  • "last"

password

aliases: pass, pwd

string

The password of the vSphere vCenter server.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_PASSWORD will be used instead.

port

integer

The port number of the vSphere vCenter server.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_PORT will be used instead.

Default: 443

proxy_host

string

The address of a proxy that will receive all HTTPS requests and relay them.

The format is a hostname or a IP.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_PROXY_HOST will be used instead.

proxy_port

integer

The port of the HTTP proxy that will receive all HTTPS requests and relay them.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_PROXY_PORT will be used instead.

settings

dictionary / required

A dictionary that describes the advanced settings you want to manage.

All settings values are converted to strings. The case of the string is taken into consideration when checking for changes. For example ‘True’ != ‘TRUE’.

When state is present, settings must have a value and cannot be an empty string or None (you can use the string ‘None’).

state

string

Set the state of the advanced settings on the VM.

If present, the specified advanced settings are added to the VM if they are missing or the value is incorrect.

If absent, the specified advanced settings are removed. If a setting is provided with an empty value, then the setting will be removed regardless of the current value on the VM.

Choices:

  • "present" ← (default)

  • "absent"

use_instance_uuid

boolean

Whether to use the VMware instance UUID rather than the BIOS UUID.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

username

aliases: admin, user

string

The username of the vSphere vCenter server.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_USER will be used instead.

uuid

string

UUID of the instance to manage if known, this is VMware’s unique identifier.

This is required if name or moid is not supplied.

validate_certs

boolean

Allows connection when SSL certificates are not valid. Set to false when certificates are not trusted.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_VALIDATE_CERTS will be used instead.

Choices:

  • false

  • true ← (default)

Notes

Note

  • All modules require API write access and hence are not supported on a free ESXi license.

  • All variables and VMware object names are case sensitive.

  • Modules may rely on the ‘requests’ python library, which does not use the system certificate store by default. You can specify the certificate store by setting the REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE environment variable. Note having this variable set may cause a ‘false’ value for the ‘validate_certs’ option to be ignored in some cases. Example: ‘export REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE=/path/to/your/ca_bundle.pem’

Examples

- name: Make Sure The Following Advanced Settings Are Present
  vmware.vmware.vm_advanced_settings:
    hostname: "{{ vcenter_hostname }}"
    username: "{{ vcenter_username }}"
    password: "{{ vcenter_password }}"
    validate_certs: false
    name: my-test-vm
    settings:
      one: 1
      two: 2
      three: 3
    state: present

- name: Remove The Following Advanced Settings
  vmware.vmware.vm_advanced_settings:
    hostname: "{{ vcenter_hostname }}"
    username: "{{ vcenter_username }}"
    password: "{{ vcenter_password }}"
    validate_certs: false
    name: "{{ vm }}"
    settings:
      one: 1    # remove advanced setting if it has both key == 'one' and value == 1
      two: ""   # remove any advanced setting with the key 'two', regardless of value
    state: absent

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key

Description

result

dictionary

Information about the vCenter task, if something changed

Returned: On change

Sample: {"result": {"completion_time": "2024-07-29T15:27:37.041577+00:00", "entity_name": "test-4ad4-vm_advanced_settings", "error": null, "result": null, "state": "success"}}

updated_settings

dictionary

Information about any settings that were changed. Includes the old value and the new value

Returned: Always

Sample: {"updated_settings": {"my-setting": {"new": "new-value", "old": "old-value"}}}

vm

dictionary

Information about the target VM

Returned: On success

Sample: {"vm": {"moid": "vm-79828", "name": "test-d9c1-vm"}}

Authors

  • Ansible Cloud Team (@ansible-collections)