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Ansible Inventory from VMWare

Published: 06-01-2014 | Author: Remy van Elst | Text only version of this article


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Table of Contents

This is a simple script which lets you use VMWare vCenter as a dynamic inventory for Ansible.

Github repository
Official Website

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Installation

Install PySphere:

pip install -U pysphere

Edit the script's login data and VCenter server FQDN:

server_fqdn = "vcenter.example.org"
server_username = "jdoe"
server_password = "secure_passw0rd"

Test it:

Get all powered on VM's:

python2 query.py --list

Output:

{
    "no_group": {
        "hosts": [
            "vm0031",
            "vm0032",
            [...]
            "vm0999"
        ]
    },
    "local": [
        "127.0.0.1"
    ]
}

Get one VM:

python2 query.py --host vm0032

Output:

{
    "admin": "sysadmin@example.org",
    "source_database": "VMWare"
}

Nonexistent VM:

python2 query.py --host nonexist

Output:

[Error]: [Object Not Found]: Could not find a VM named 'notexist'

Do a simple ansible ping:

ANSIBLE_HOSTS="/home/remy/git/vmware-ansible/query.py" ansible all -m ping

Result:

vm0032 | success >> {
    "changed": false,
    "ping": "pong"
}

vm0034 | success >> {
    "changed": false,
    "ping": "pong"
}

Usage

Either export the ANSIBLE_HOSTS variable to always use the VMWare inventory:

export ANSIBLE_HOSTS="/home/remy/git/vmware-ansible/query.py"

Or preface each ansible command:

ANSIBLE_HOSTS="/home/remy/git/vmware-ansible/query.py" ansible all -m apt -a "upgrade=safe"

Notes

Tested with both vCenter 5.1 and 5.5, Python 2.

Does not support grouping by datacenter or resource group

Thanks to JP Mens's article for the inspiration.

Tags: ansible , deployment , devops , python , software , vmware