vmware.vmware.content_template module – Manage template in content library from virtual machine.

Note

This module is part of the vmware.vmware collection (version 2.8.0).

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. You need further requirements to be able to use this module, see Requirements for details.

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

Synopsis

  • Module to manage template in content library from virtual machine.

  • Content Library feature is introduced in vSphere 6.0 version.

  • This module does not work with vSphere version older than 67U2.

Requirements

The below requirements are needed on the host that executes this module.

  • vSphere Automation SDK

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

cluster

aliases: cluster_name

string

Cluster onto which the virtual machine template should be placed.

If cluster and resource_pool are both specified, resource_pool must belong to cluster.

If cluster and host are both specified, host must be a member of cluster.

This attribute was added in vSphere API 6.8.

datacenter

aliases: datacenter_name

string

The name of the datacenter to use when searching for the source VM.

This parameter is optional, and only used if you use a relative vm_folder path.

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

host

string

Host onto which the virtual machine template should be placed.

If host and resource_pool are both specified, resource_pool must belong to host.

If host and cluster are both specified, host must be a member of cluster.

This attribute was added in vSphere API 6.8.

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.

library

string / required

The name of the content library where the template will be created.

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.

proxy_protocol

aliases: protocol

string

The proxy connection protocol to use.

This option is used if the correct proxy protocol cannot be automatically determined.

Choices:

  • "http"

  • "https" ← (default)

resource_pool

string

Resource pool into which the virtual machine template should be placed.

This attribute was added in vSphere API 6.8.

If not specified, the system will attempt to choose a suitable resource pool for the virtual machine template; if a resource pool cannot be chosen, the library item creation operation will fail.

If cluster and resource_pool are both specified, resource_pool must belong to cluster.

If host and resource_pool are both specified, resource_pool must belong to host.

state

string

State of the template in content library.

If present, the template will be created in content library.

If absent, the template will be deleted from content library.

Choices:

  • "present" ← (default)

  • "absent"

template_folder

aliases: template_folder

string

Virtual machine folder into which the virtual machine template should be placed.

This attribute was added in vSphere API 6.8.

If not specified, the virtual machine template will be placed in the same folder as the source virtual machine.

template_name

aliases: template

string / required

The name of template to manage.

use_instance_uuid

boolean

Whether to use the VMware instance UUID rather than the BIOS UUID when searching for the VM.

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.

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)

vm_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’

vm_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 vm_name or vm_uuid is not supplied.

A VM identifier is required when state is present.

vm_name

string

The name of the VM to be used to create template.

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

This is required if vm_moid or vm_uuid is not supplied.

A VM identifier is required when state is present.

vm_name_match

string

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

Choices:

  • "first" ← (default)

  • "last"

vm_uuid

string

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

This is required if vm_moid or vm_name is not supplied.

A VM identifier is required when state is present.

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: Create template in content library from Virtual Machine
  vmware.vmware.content_template:
    hostname: '{{ vcenter_hostname }}'
    username: '{{ vcenter_username }}'
    password: '{{ vcenter_password }}'
    template: mytemplate
    library: mylibrary
    vm_name: myvm
    host: myhost

Return Values

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

Key

Description

template_info

dictionary

Template creation message and template_id

Returned: on success

Sample: {"msg": "Template 'mytemplate'.", "template_id": "template-1009"}

Authors

  • Ansible Cloud Team (@ansible-collections)