How to create a VMware vSphere Virtual Machine with Ansible?
I’m going to show you a live Playbook and some simple Ansible code. I’m Luca Berton and welcome to today’s episode of Ansible Pilot
Ansible creates a VMware vSphere Virtual Machine
community.vmware.vmware_guestManages virtual machines in vCenter
Today we’re talking about the Ansible module vmware_guest.
The full name is community.vmware.vmware_guest, which means that is part of the collection of modules to interact with VMware, community-supported.
It’s a module pretty stable and out for years.
It manages virtual machines in vCenter.
Parameters
The module vmware_guest has a very long list of parameters to customize all your needs to create a VMware vSphere Virtual Machine. Please refer to manual for the full list.
Links
Playbook
How to create a VMware vSphere Virtual Machine with Ansible. I’m going to show you how to create a Virtual Machine named “myvm” with the following resources:
- 1 CPU
- 1 GB of RAM
- 10 GB of storage, thin-provisioned in the datastore “Datastore-1” network card name “VM Network”, type “vmxnet3”
code
- create_vm.yml
---
- name: create vm Playbook
hosts: localhost
become: false
gather_facts: false
collections:
- community.vmware
pre_tasks:
- include_vars: vars.yml
tasks:
- name: create folder
vcenter_folder:
hostname: "{{ vcenter_hostname }}"
username: "{{ vcenter_username }}"
password: "{{ vcenter_password }}"
validate_certs: "{{ vcenter_validate_certs }}"
datacenter_name: "{{ vcenter_datacenter }}"
folder_name: "{{ vcenter_destination_folder }}"
folder_type: vm
state: present
- name: create VM
vmware_guest:
hostname: "{{ vcenter_hostname }}"
username: "{{ vcenter_username }}"
password: "{{ vcenter_password }}"
validate_certs: "{{ vcenter_validate_certs }}"
datacenter: "{{ vcenter_datacenter }}"
name: "{{ vm_name }}"
folder: "{{ vcenter_destination_folder }}"
state: "{{ vm_state }}"
guest_id: "{{ vm_guestid }}"
cluster: "{{ vcenter_cluster }}"
disk:
- size_gb: "{{ vm_disk_gb }}"
type: "{{ vm_disk_type }}"
datastore: "{{ vm_disk_datastore }}"
hardware:
memory_mb: "{{ vm_hw_ram_mb }}"
num_cpus: "{{ vm_hw_cpu_n }}"
scsi: "{{ vm_hw_scsi }}"
networks:
- name: "{{ vm_net_name }}"
device_name: "{{ vm_net_type }}"
- vars.yml
---
vcenter_hostname: "vmware.example.com"
vcenter_datacenter: "vmwaredatacenter"
vcenter_validate_certs: false
vcenter_username: "[email protected]"
vcenter_password: "MySecretPassword123"
vm_name: "myvm"
vm_guestid: "centos64Guest"
vm_disk_gb: 10
vm_disk_type: "thin"
vm_disk_datastore: "Datastore-1"
vm_hw_ram_mb: 1024
vm_hw_cpu_n: 1
vm_hw_scsi: "paravirtual"
vm_net_name: "VM Network"
vm_net_type: "vmxnet3"
vcenter_destination_folder: "myvm"
vm_state: "poweroff"
- inventory
localhost
execution
$ ansible-playbook -i inventory vm_create.yml
PLAY [Create VM Playbook] *****************************************************************************
TASK [include_vars] *******************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]
TASK [Create folder] ******************************************************************************
changed: [localhost]
TASK [Create VM] **********************************************************************************
changed: [localhost]
PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************************
localhost : ok=3 changed=2 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0
idempotency
$ ansible-playbook -i inventory vm_create.yml
PLAY [Create VM Playbook] *****************************************************************************
TASK [include_vars] *******************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]
TASK [Create folder] ******************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]
TASK [Create VM] **********************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]
PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************************
localhost : ok=3 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=0 rescued=0 ignored=0
after execution
Conclusion
Now you know how to create a VMware vSphere Virtual Machine with Ansible. Subscribe to the YouTube channel, Medium, and Website, X (formerly Twitter) to not miss the next episode of the Ansible Pilot.
Academy
Learn the Ansible automation technology with some real-life examples in my
Udemy 300+ Lessons Video Course.
My book Ansible By Examples: 200+ Automation Examples For Linux and Windows System Administrator and DevOps
Donate
Want to keep this project going? Please donate