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community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory inventory – VMware Guest inventory source

Note

This inventory plugin is part of the community.vmware collection (version 3.7.0).

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 community.vmware. You need further requirements to be able to use this inventory plugin, see Requirements for details.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory.

Synopsis

• Get virtual machines as inventory hosts from VMware environment.

• Uses any file which ends with vmware.yml, vmware.yaml, vmware_vm_inventory.yml, or vmware_vm_inventory.yaml as a YAML configuration file.

Requirements

The below requirements are needed on the local controller node that executes this inventory.

• requests >= 2.3

• vSphere Automation SDK - For tag feature

Parameters

Parameter	Comments
cache boolean	Toggle to enable/disable the caching of the inventory’s source data, requires a cache plugin setup to work. Choices: false ← (default) true Configuration: INI entry: [inventory] cache = false Environment variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE
cache_connection string	Cache connection data or path, read cache plugin documentation for specifics. Configuration: INI entries: [defaults] fact_caching_connection = VALUE [inventory] cache_connection = VALUE Environment variable: ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN_CONNECTION Environment variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_CONNECTION
cache_plugin string	Cache plugin to use for the inventory’s source data. Default: "memory" Configuration: INI entries: [defaults] fact_caching = memory [inventory] cache_plugin = memory Environment variable: ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN Environment variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN
cache_prefix string	Prefix to use for cache plugin files/tables Default: "ansible_inventory_" Configuration: INI entries: [default] fact_caching_prefix = ansible_inventory_ Removed in: version 2.16 of ansible.builtin Why: Fixes typing error in INI section name Alternative: Use the ‘defaults’ section instead [defaults] fact_caching_prefix = ansible_inventory_ [inventory] cache_prefix = ansible_inventory_ Environment variable: ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN_PREFIX Environment variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN_PREFIX
cache_timeout integer	Cache duration in seconds Default: 3600 Configuration: INI entries: [defaults] fact_caching_timeout = 3600 [inventory] cache_timeout = 3600 Environment variable: ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN_TIMEOUT Environment variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_TIMEOUT
compose dictionary	Create vars from jinja2 expressions. Default: {}
filters list / elements=string	This option allows client-side filtering hosts with jinja templating. When server-side filtering is introduced, it should be preferred over this. Default: []
groups dictionary	Add hosts to group based on Jinja2 conditionals. Default: {}
hostname string / required	Name of vCenter or ESXi server. Configuration: Environment variable: VMWARE_HOST Environment variable: VMWARE_SERVER
hostnames list / elements=string	A list of templates in order of precedence to compose inventory_hostname. Ignores template if resulted in an empty string or None value. You can use property specified in properties as variables in the template. Default: ["config.name + \"_\" + config.uuid"]
keyed_groups list / elements=dictionary	Add hosts to group based on the values of a variable. Default: [{"key": "config.guestId", "separator": ""}, {"key": "summary.runtime.powerState", "separator": ""}]
default_value string added in ansible-core 2.12	The default value when the host variable’s value is an empty string. This option is mutually exclusive with trailing_separator.
key string	The key from input dictionary used to generate groups
parent_group string	parent group for keyed group
prefix string	A keyed group name will start with this prefix Default: ""
separator string	separator used to build the keyed group name Default: "_"
trailing_separator boolean added in ansible-core 2.12	Set this option to False to omit the separator after the host variable when the value is an empty string. This option is mutually exclusive with default_value. Choices: false true ← (default)
leading_separator boolean added in ansible-core 2.11	Use in conjunction with keyed_groups. By default, a keyed group that does not have a prefix or a separator provided will have a name that starts with an underscore. This is because the default prefix is “” and the default separator is “_”. Set this option to False to omit the leading underscore (or other separator) if no prefix is given. If the group name is derived from a mapping the separator is still used to concatenate the items. To not use a separator in the group name at all, set the separator for the keyed group to an empty string instead. Choices: false true ← (default)
password string / required	Password of vSphere user. Accepts vault encrypted variable. Configuration: Environment variable: VMWARE_PASSWORD
port integer	Port number used to connect to vCenter or ESXi Server. Default: 443 Configuration: Environment variable: VMWARE_PORT
properties list / elements=string	Specify the list of VMware schema properties associated with the VM. These properties will be populated in hostvars of the given VM. Each value in the list can be a path to a specific property in VM object or a path to a collection of VM objects. config.name, config.uuid are required properties if hostnames is set to default. config.guestId, summary.runtime.powerState are required if keyed_groups is set to default. Please make sure that all the properties that are used in other parameters are included in this options. In addition to VM properties, the following are special values Use customValue to populate virtual machine’s custom attributes. customValue is only supported by vCenter and not by ESXi. Use all to populate all the properties of the virtual machine. The value all is time consuming operation, do not use unless required absolutely. Please refer more VMware guest attributes which can be used as properties https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/community/vmware/docsite/vmware_scenarios/vmware_inventory_vm_attributes.html Default: ["name", "config.cpuHotAddEnabled", "config.cpuHotRemoveEnabled", "config.instanceUuid", "config.hardware.numCPU", "config.template", "config.name", "config.uuid", "guest.hostName", "guest.ipAddress", "guest.guestId", "guest.guestState", "runtime.maxMemoryUsage", "customValue", "summary.runtime.powerState", "config.guestId"]
proxy_host string	Address of a proxy that will receive all HTTPS requests and relay them. The format is a hostname or a IP. This feature depends on a version of pyvmomi>=v6.7.1.2018.12. Configuration: Environment variable: VMWARE_PROXY_HOST
proxy_port integer	Port of the HTTP proxy that will receive all HTTPS requests and relay them. Configuration: Environment variable: VMWARE_PROXY_PORT
resources list / elements=dictionary	A list of resources to limit search scope. Each resource item is represented by exactly one 'vim_type_snake_case:list of resource names pair and optional nested resources Key name is based on snake case of a vim type name; e.g host_system correspond to vim.HostSystem See VIM Types Default: []
strict boolean	If yes make invalid entries a fatal error, otherwise skip and continue. Since it is possible to use facts in the expressions they might not always be available and we ignore those errors by default. Choices: false ← (default) true
use_extra_vars boolean added in ansible-core 2.11	Merge extra vars into the available variables for composition (highest precedence). Choices: false ← (default) true Configuration: INI entry: [inventory_plugins] use_extra_vars = false Environment variable: ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_USE_EXTRA_VARS
username string / required	Name of vSphere user. Accepts vault encrypted variable. Configuration: Environment variable: VMWARE_USER Environment variable: VMWARE_USERNAME
validate_certs boolean	Allows connection when SSL certificates are not valid. Set to false when certificates are not trusted. Choices: false true ← (default) Configuration: Environment variable: VMWARE_VALIDATE_CERTS
with_nested_properties boolean	This option transform flatten properties name to nested dictionary. From 1.10.0 and onwards, default value is set to true. Choices: false true ← (default)
with_path boolean	Include virtual machines path. Set this option to a string value to replace root name from ‘Datacenters’. Choices: false ← (default) true
with_sanitized_property_name boolean	This option allows property name sanitization to create safe property names for use in Ansible. Also, transforms property name to snake case. Choices: false ← (default) true
with_tags boolean	Include tags and associated virtual machines. Requires ‘vSphere Automation SDK’ library to be installed on the given controller machine. Please refer following URLs for installation steps https://code.vmware.com/web/sdk/7.0/vsphere-automation-python Choices: false ← (default) true

Examples

# Sample configuration file for VMware Guest dynamic inventory
    plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
    strict: false
    hostname: 10.65.223.31
    username: [email protected]
    password: Esxi@123$%
    validate_certs: false
    with_tags: true

# Gather minimum set of properties for VMware guest
    plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
    strict: false
    hostname: 10.65.223.31
    username: [email protected]
    password: Esxi@123$%
    validate_certs: false
    properties:
    - 'name'
    - 'guest.ipAddress'
    - 'config.name'
    - 'config.uuid'

# Create Groups based upon VMware Tools status
    plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
    strict: false
    hostname: 10.65.223.31
    username: [email protected]
    password: Esxi@123$%
    validate_certs: false
    properties:
    - 'name'
    - 'config.name'
    - 'guest.toolsStatus'
    - 'guest.toolsRunningStatus'
    hostnames:
    - config.name
    keyed_groups:
    - key: guest.toolsStatus
      separator: ''
    - key: guest.toolsRunningStatus
      separator: ''

# Filter VMs based upon condition
    plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
    strict: false
    hostname: 10.65.223.31
    username: [email protected]
    password: Esxi@123$%
    validate_certs: false
    properties:
    - 'runtime.powerState'
    - 'config.name'
    filters:
    - runtime.powerState == "poweredOn"
    hostnames:
    - config.name

# Filter VM's based on OR conditions
    plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
    strict: false
    hostname: 10.65.223.31
    username: [email protected]
    password: Esxi@123$%
    validate_certs: false
    properties:
    - 'name'
    - 'config.name'
    - 'guest.ipAddress'
    - 'guest.toolsStatus'
    - 'guest.toolsRunningStatus'
    - 'config.guestFullName'
    - 'config.guestId'
    hostnames:
    - 'config.name'
    filters:
    - config.guestId == "rhel7_64Guest" or config.name == "rhel_20_04_empty"

# Filter VM's based on regex conditions
    plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
    strict: false
    hostname: 10.65.223.31
    username: [email protected]
    password: Esxi@123$%
    validate_certs: false
    properties:
    - 'config.name'
    - 'config.guestId'
    - 'guest.ipAddress'
    - 'summary.runtime.powerState'
    filters:
    - guest.ipAddress is defined and (guest.ipAddress is match('192.168.*') or guest.ipAddress is match('192.169.*'))

# Using compose and groups
    plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
    strict: false
    hostname: 10.65.223.31
    username: [email protected]
    password: Esxi@123$%
    validate_certs: false
    properties:
    - 'name'
    - 'config.name'
    - 'guest.ipAddress'
    compose:
      # This will populate the IP address of virtual machine if available
      # and will be used while communicating to the given virtual machine
      ansible_host: 'guest.ipAddress'
      composed_var: 'config.name'
      # This will populate a host variable with a string value
      ansible_user: "'admin'"
      ansible_connection: "'ssh'"
    groups:
      VMs: true
    hostnames:
    - config.name

# Use Datacenter, Cluster and Folder value to list VMs
    plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
    strict: false
    hostname: 10.65.200.241
    username: [email protected]
    password: Esxi@123$%
    validate_certs: false
    with_tags: true
    resources:
      - datacenter:
        - Asia-Datacenter1
        - Asia-Datacenter2
        resources:
        - compute_resource:
          - Asia-Cluster1
          resources:
          - host_system:
            - Asia-ESXI4
        - folder:
          - dev
          - prod

# Use Category and it's relation with Tag
    plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
    strict: false
    hostname: 10.65.201.128
    username: [email protected]
    password: Esxi@123$%
    validate_certs: false
    hostnames:
    - 'config.name'
    properties:
    - 'config.name'
    - 'config.guestId'
    - 'guest.ipAddress'
    - 'summary.runtime.powerState'
    with_tags: true
    keyed_groups:
    - key: tag_category.OS
      prefix: "vmware_tag_os_category_"
      separator: ""
    with_nested_properties: true
    filters:
    - "tag_category.OS is defined and 'Linux' in tag_category.OS"

# customizing hostnames based on VM's FQDN. The second hostnames template acts as a fallback mechanism.
    plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
    strict: false
    hostname: 10.65.223.31
    username: [email protected]
    password: Esxi@123$%
    validate_certs: false
    hostnames:
     - 'config.name+"."+guest.ipStack.0.dnsConfig.domainName'
     - 'config.name'
    properties:
      - 'config.name'
      - 'config.guestId'
      - 'guest.hostName'
      - 'guest.ipAddress'
      - 'guest.guestFamily'
      - 'guest.ipStack'

# Select a specific IP address for use by ansible when multiple NICs are present on the VM
    plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
    strict: false
    hostname: 10.65.223.31
    username: [email protected]
    password: Esxi@123$%
    validate_certs: false
    compose:
      # Set the IP address used by ansible to one that starts by 10.42. or 10.43.
      ansible_host: >-
        guest.net
        | selectattr('ipAddress')
        | map(attribute='ipAddress')
        | flatten
        | select('match', '^10.42.*|^10.43.*')
        | list
        | first
    properties:
      - guest.net

# Group hosts using Jinja2 conditionals
    plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
    strict: false
    hostname: 10.65.13.37
    username: [email protected]
    password: Esxi@123$%
    validate_certs: false
    hostnames:
    - config.name
    properties:
    - 'name'
    - 'config.name'
    - 'config.datastoreUrl'
    groups:
      slow_storage: "'Nas01' in config.datastoreUrl[0].name"
      fast_storage: "'SSD' in config.datastoreUrl[0].name"

Authors

• Abhijeet Kasurde (@Akasurde)

Hint

Configuration entries for each entry type have a low to high priority order. For example, a variable that is lower in the list will override a variable that is higher up.

Collection links

Issue Tracker Homepage Repository (Sources)