Retrieve information from a specific VM
Introduction
This section shows you how to use Ansible to retrieve information about a specific virtual machine.
Scenario requirements
You’ve already followed How to create a Virtual Machine and you’ve got create a new VM called test_vm1.
How to collect virtual machine information
List the VM
In this example, we use the vcenter_vm_info module to collect information about our new VM.
In this example, we start by asking for a list of VMs. We use a filter to limit the results to just the VM called test_vm1. So we are in a list context, with one single entry in the value key.
- name: Look up the VM called test_vm1 in the inventory
register: search_result
vmware.vmware_rest.vcenter_vm_info:
filter_names:
- test_vm1
Result
As expected, we get a list. And thanks to our filter, we just get one entry.
{
"value": [
{
"memory_size_MiB": 1024,
"vm": "vm-1650",
"name": "test_vm1",
"power_state": "POWERED_OFF",
"cpu_count": 1
}
],
"changed": false
}
Collect the details about a specific VM
For the next steps, we pass the ID of the VM through the vm parameter. This allow us to collect more details about this specific VM.
- name: Collect information about a specific VM
vmware.vmware_rest.vcenter_vm_info:
vm: '{{ search_result.value[0].vm }}'
register: test_vm1_info
Result
The result is a structure with all the details about our VM. You will note this is actually the same information that we get when we created the VM.
{
"value": {
"instant_clone_frozen": false,
"cdroms": [],
"memory": {
"size_MiB": 1024,
"hot_add_enabled": true
},
"disks": [
{
"value": {
"scsi": {
"bus": 0,
"unit": 0
},
"backing": {
"vmdk_file": "[local] test_vm1_8/test_vm1.vmdk",
"type": "VMDK_FILE"
},
"label": "Hard disk 1",
"type": "SCSI",
"capacity": 17179869184
},
"key": "2000"
}
],
"parallel_ports": [],
"sata_adapters": [],
"cpu": {
"hot_remove_enabled": false,
"count": 1,
"hot_add_enabled": false,
"cores_per_socket": 1
},
"scsi_adapters": [
{
"value": {
"scsi": {
"bus": 0,
"unit": 7
},
"label": "SCSI controller 0",
"sharing": "NONE",
"type": "PVSCSI"
},
"key": "1000"
}
],
"power_state": "POWERED_OFF",
"floppies": [],
"identity": {
"name": "test_vm1",
"instance_uuid": "5033c296-6954-64df-faca-d001de53763d",
"bios_uuid": "42330d17-e603-d925-fa4b-18827dbc1409"
},
"nvme_adapters": [],
"name": "test_vm1",
"nics": [],
"boot": {
"delay": 0,
"retry_delay": 10000,
"enter_setup_mode": false,
"type": "BIOS",
"retry": false
},
"serial_ports": [],
"boot_devices": [],
"guest_OS": "DEBIAN_8_64",
"hardware": {
"upgrade_policy": "NEVER",
"upgrade_status": "NONE",
"version": "VMX_11"
}
},
"id": "vm-1650",
"changed": false
}
Get the hardware version of a specific VM
We can also use all the vcenter_vm_*_info modules to retrieve a smaller amount
of information. Here we use vcenter_vm_hardware_info to know the hardware version of
the VM.
- name: Collect the hardware information
vmware.vmware_rest.vcenter_vm_hardware_info:
vm: '{{ search_result.value[0].vm }}'
register: my_vm1_hardware_info
Result
{
"value": {
"upgrade_policy": "NEVER",
"upgrade_status": "NONE",
"version": "VMX_11"
},
"changed": false
}
List the SCSI adapter(s) of a specific VM
Here for instance, we list the SCSI adapter(s) of the VM:
- name: List the SCSI adapter of a given VM
vmware.vmware_rest.vcenter_vm_hardware_adapter_scsi_info:
vm: '{{ test_vm1_info.id }}'
register: _result
You can do the same for the SATA controllers with vcenter_vm_adapter_sata_info.
Result
{
"value": [
{
"scsi": {
"bus": 0,
"unit": 7
},
"label": "SCSI controller 0",
"type": "PVSCSI",
"sharing": "NONE"
}
],
"changed": false
}
List the CDROM drive(s) of a specific VM
And we list its CDROM drives.
- name: List the cdrom devices on the guest
vmware.vmware_rest.vcenter_vm_hardware_cdrom_info:
vm: '{{ test_vm1_info.id }}'
register: _result
Get the memory information of the VM
Here we collect the memory information of the VM:
- name: Retrieve the memory information from the VM
vmware.vmware_rest.vcenter_vm_hardware_memory_info:
vm: '{{ test_vm1_info.id }}'
register: _result
Result
{
"value": {
"size_MiB": 1024,
"hot_add_enabled": true
},
"changed": false
}
Get the storage policy of the VM
We use the vcenter_vm_storage_policy_info module for that:
- name: Get VM storage policy
vmware.vmware_rest.vcenter_vm_storage_policy_info:
vm: '{{ test_vm1_info.id }}'
register: _result
Result
{
"value": {
"disks": []
},
"changed": false
}
Get the disk information of the VM
We use the vcenter_vm_hardware_disk_info for this operation:
- name: Retrieve the disk information from the VM
vmware.vmware_rest.vcenter_vm_hardware_disk_info:
vm: '{{ test_vm1_info.id }}'
register: _result