Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
VMware: Inventory scenario guide for hostnames (ansible#71055)
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
Added a scenario guide for ``hostnames`` parameter
for vmware_vm_inventory.

Signed-off-by: Abhijeet Kasurde <akasurde@redhat.com>
  • Loading branch information
Akasurde committed Aug 4, 2020
1 parent 4e27569 commit 0055673
Show file tree
Hide file tree
Showing 2 changed files with 128 additions and 0 deletions.
1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions docs/docsite/rst/scenario_guides/guide_vmware.rst
Expand Up @@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ To get started, please select one of the following topics.
vmware_scenarios/vmware_requirements
vmware_scenarios/vmware_inventory
vmware_scenarios/vmware_inventory_vm_attributes
vmware_scenarios/vmware_inventory_hostnames
vmware_scenarios/vmware_scenarios
vmware_scenarios/vmware_troubleshooting
vmware_scenarios/vmware_external_doc_links
Expand Down
@@ -0,0 +1,127 @@
.. _vmware_ansible_inventory_using_hostnames:

*************************************************
Using VMware dynamic inventory plugin - Hostnames
*************************************************

.. contents:: Topics

VMware dynamic inventory plugin - Customizing hostnames
=======================================================


VMware inventory plugin allows you to configure hostnames using the ``hostnames`` configuration parameter.

In this scenario guide we will see how you configure hostnames from the given VMware guest in the inventory.

Requirements
------------

To use the VMware dynamic inventory plugins, you must install `pyVmomi <https://github.com/vmware/pyvmomi>`_
on your control node (the host running Ansible).

To include tag-related information for the virtual machines in your dynamic inventory, you also need the `vSphere Automation SDK <https://code.vmware.com/web/sdk/65/vsphere-automation-python>`_, which supports REST API features such as tagging and content libraries, on your control node.
You can install the ``vSphere Automation SDK`` following `these instructions <https://github.com/vmware/vsphere-automation-sdk-python#installing-required-python-packages>`_.

.. code-block:: bash
$ pip install pyvmomi
Starting in Ansible 2.10, the VMware dynamic inventory plugin is available in the ``community.vmware`` collection included Ansible.
To install the latest ``community.vmware`` collection:

.. code-block:: bash
$ ansible-galaxy collection install community.vmware
To use this VMware dynamic inventory plugin:

1. Enable it first by specifying the following in the ``ansible.cfg`` file:

.. code-block:: ini
[inventory]
enable_plugins = community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
2. Create a file that ends in ``.vmware.yml`` or ``.vmware.yaml`` in your working directory.
The ``vmware_vm_inventory`` inventory plugin takes in the same authentication information as any other VMware modules does.

Here's an example of a valid inventory file with custom hostname for the given VMware guest:

.. code-block:: yaml
plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
strict: False
hostname: 10.65.223.31
username: administrator@vsphere.local
password: Esxi@123$%
validate_certs: False
with_tags: False
hostnames:
- config.name
Here, we have configured a custom hostname by setting the ``hostnames`` parameter to ``config.name``. This will retrieve
the ``config.name`` property from the virtual machine and populate it in the inventory.

You can check all allowed properties for the given virtual machine at :ref:`vmware_inventory_vm_attributes`.

Executing ``ansible-inventory --list -i <filename>.vmware.yml`` will create a list of the virtual machines that are ready to be configured using Ansible.

What to expect
--------------

You will notice that instead of default behavior of representing the hostname as ``config.name + _ + config.uuid``,
the inventory hosts show value as ``config.name``.


.. code-block:: yaml
{
"_meta": {
"hostvars": {
"template_001": {
"config.name": "template_001",
"guest.toolsRunningStatus": "guestToolsNotRunning",
...
"guest.toolsStatus": "toolsNotInstalled",
"name": "template_001"
},
"vm_8046": {
"config.name": "vm_8046",
"guest.toolsRunningStatus": "guestToolsNotRunning",
...
"guest.toolsStatus": "toolsNotInstalled",
"name": "vm_8046"
},
...
}
Troubleshooting
---------------

If the custom property specified in ``hostnames`` fails:

- Check if the values provided for username and password are correct.
- Make sure it is a valid property, see :ref:`vmware_inventory_vm_attributes`.
- Use ``strict: True`` to get more information about the error.
- Please make sure that you are using latest version VMware collection.


.. seealso::

`pyVmomi <https://github.com/vmware/pyvmomi>`_
The GitHub Page of pyVmomi
`pyVmomi Issue Tracker <https://github.com/vmware/pyvmomi/issues>`_
The issue tracker for the pyVmomi project
`vSphere Automation SDK GitHub Page <https://github.com/vmware/vsphere-automation-sdk-python>`_
The GitHub Page of vSphere Automation SDK for Python
`vSphere Automation SDK Issue Tracker <https://github.com/vmware/vsphere-automation-sdk-python/issues>`_
The issue tracker for vSphere Automation SDK for Python
:ref:`vmware_inventory_vm_attributes`
Using Virtual machine attributes in VMware dynamic inventory plugin
:ref:`working_with_playbooks`
An introduction to playbooks
:ref:`playbooks_vault`
Using Vault in playbooks

0 comments on commit 0055673

Please sign in to comment.