Troubleshooting Ansible for VMware

This section lists things that can go wrong and possible ways to fix them.

Debugging Ansible for VMware

When debugging or creating a new issue, you will need information about your VMware infrastructure. You can get this information using govc, For example:

$ export GOVC_USERNAME=ESXI_OR_VCENTER_USERNAME
$ export GOVC_PASSWORD=ESXI_OR_VCENTER_PASSWORD
$ export GOVC_URL=https://ESXI_OR_VCENTER_HOSTNAME:443
$ govc find /

Known issues with Ansible for VMware

Network settings with vmware_guest in Ubuntu 18.04

Setting the network with vmware_guest in Ubuntu 18.04 is known to be broken, due to missing support for netplan in the open-vm-tools. This issue is tracked via:

Potential Workarounds

There are several workarounds for this issue.

  1. Modify the Ubuntu 18.04 images and installing ifupdown in them via sudo apt install ifupdown. If so you need to remove netplan via sudo apt remove netplan.io and you need stop systemd-networkd via sudo systemctl disable systemctl-networkd.

  2. Generate the systemd-networkd files with a task in your VMware Ansible role:

- name: make sure cache directory exists
  file: path="{{ inventory_dir }}/cache" state=directory
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: generate network templates
  template: src=network.j2 dest="{{ inventory_dir }}/cache/{{ inventory_hostname }}.network"
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: copy generated files to vm
  vmware_guest_file_operation:
    hostname: "{{ vmware_general.hostname }}"
    username: "{{ vmware_username }}"
    password: "{{ vmware_password }}"
    datacenter: "{{ vmware_general.datacenter }}"
    validate_certs: "{{ vmware_general.validate_certs }}"
    vm_id: "{{ inventory_hostname }}"
    vm_username: root
    vm_password: "{{ template_password }}"
    copy:
        src: "{{ inventory_dir }}/cache/{{ inventory_hostname }}.network"
        dest: "/etc/systemd/network/ens160.network"
        overwrite: False
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: restart systemd-networkd
  vmware_vm_shell:
    hostname: "{{ vmware_general.hostname }}"
    username: "{{ vmware_username }}"
    password: "{{ vmware_password }}"
    datacenter: "{{ vmware_general.datacenter }}"
    folder: /vm
    vm_id: "{{ inventory_hostname}}"
    vm_username: root
    vm_password: "{{ template_password }}"
    vm_shell: /bin/systemctl
    vm_shell_args: " restart systemd-networkd"
  delegate_to: localhost

- name: restart systemd-resolved
  vmware_vm_shell:
    hostname: "{{ vmware_general.hostname }}"
    username: "{{ vmware_username }}"
    password: "{{ vmware_password }}"
    datacenter: "{{ vmware_general.datacenter }}"
    folder: /vm
    vm_id: "{{ inventory_hostname}}"
    vm_username: root
    vm_password: "{{ template_password }}"
    vm_shell: /bin/systemctl
    vm_shell_args: " restart systemd-resolved"
  delegate_to: localhost

  1. Wait for netplan support in open-vm-tools