Topics
This guide will show you how to utilize Ansible to clone a virtual machine from already existing VMware template or existing VMware guest.
Software
- Ansible 2.5 or later must be installed
- The Python module
Pyvmomi
must be installed on the Ansible (or Target host if not executing against localhost)- Installing the latest
Pyvmomi
viapip
is recommended [as the OS provided packages are usually out of date and incompatible]
Hardware
- vCenter Server with at least one ESXi server
Access / Credentials
Ansible (or the target server) must have network access to the either vCenter server or the ESXi server you will be deploying to
Username and Password
Administrator user with following privileges
VirtualMachine.Provisioning.Clone
on the virtual machine you are cloningVirtualMachine.Inventory.CreateFromExisting
on the datacenter or virtual machine folderVirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk
on the datacenter or virtual machine folderResource.Assign
virtual machine to resource pool on the destination host, cluster, or resource poolDatastore.AllocateSpace
on the destination datastore or datastore folderNetwork.AssignNetwork
on the network to which the virtual machine will be assignedVirtualMachine.Provisioning.Customize
on the virtual machine or virtual machine folder if you are customizing the guest operating systemVirtualMachine.Provisioning.ReadCustSpecs
on the root vCenter Server if you are customizing the guest operating system
validate_certs
option, as this version is capable of changing the SSL verification behavioursopen-vm-tools
package is recommended, and it requires that Perl
be installed.In this use case / example, we will be selecting a virtual machine template and cloning it into a specific folder in our Datacenter / Cluster. The following Ansible playbook showcases the basic parameters that are needed for this.
---
- name: Create a VM from a template
hosts: localhost
gather_facts: no
tasks:
- name: Clone the template
vmware_guest:
hostname: "{{ vcenter_ip }}"
username: "{{ vcenter_username }}"
password: "{{ vcenter_password }}"
validate_certs: False
name: testvm_2
template: template_el7
datacenter: "{{ datacenter_name }}"
folder: /DC1/vm
state: poweredon
cluster: "{{ cluster_name }}"
wait_for_ip_address: yes
Since Ansible utilizes the VMware API to perform actions, in this use case we will be connecting directly to the API from our localhost. This means that our playbooks will not be running from the vCenter or ESXi Server. We do not necessarily need to collect facts about our localhost, so the gather_facts
parameter will be disabled. You can run these modules against another server that would then connect to the API if your localhost does not have access to vCenter. If so, the required Python modules will need to be installed on that target server.
To begin, there are a few bits of information we will need. First and foremost is the hostname of the ESXi server or vCenter server. After this, you will need the username and password for this server. For now, you will be entering these directly, but in a more advanced playbook this can be abstracted out and stored in a more secure fashion using ansible-vault or using Ansible Tower credentials. If your vCenter or ESXi server is not setup with proper CA certificates that can be verified from the Ansible server, then it is necessary to disable validation of these certificates by using the validate_certs
parameter. To do this you need to set validate_certs=False
in your playbook.
Now you need to supply the information about the virtual machine which will be created. Give your virtual machine a name, one that conforms to all VMware requirements for naming conventions. Next, select the display name of the template from which you want to clone new virtual machine. This must match what’s displayed in VMware Web UI exactly. Then you can specify a folder to place this new virtual machine in. This path can either be a relative path or a full path to the folder including the Datacenter. You may need to specify a state for the virtual machine. This simply tells the module which action you want to take, in this case you will be ensure that the virtual machine exists and is powered on. An optional parameter is wait_for_ip_address
, this will tell Ansible to wait for the virtual machine to fully boot up and VMware Tools is running before completing this task.
{
"changed": true,
"instance": {
"annotation": "",
"current_snapshot": null,
"customvalues": {},
"guest_consolidation_needed": false,
"guest_question": null,
"guest_tools_status": "guestToolsNotRunning",
"guest_tools_version": "0",
"hw_cores_per_socket": 1,
"hw_datastores": [
"ds_215"
],
"hw_esxi_host": "192.0.2.44",
"hw_eth0": {
"addresstype": "assigned",
"ipaddresses": null,
"label": "Network adapter 1",
"macaddress": "00:50:56:8c:19:f4",
"macaddress_dash": "00-50-56-8c-19-f4",
"portgroup_key": "dvportgroup-17",
"portgroup_portkey": "0",
"summary": "DVSwitch: 50 0c 5b 22 b6 68 ab 89-fc 0b 59 a4 08 6e 80 fa"
},
"hw_files": [
"[ds_215] testvm_2/testvm_2.vmx",
"[ds_215] testvm_2/testvm_2.vmsd",
"[ds_215] testvm_2/testvm_2.vmdk"
],
"hw_folder": "/DC1/vm",
"hw_guest_full_name": null,
"hw_guest_ha_state": null,
"hw_guest_id": null,
"hw_interfaces": [
"eth0"
],
"hw_is_template": false,
"hw_memtotal_mb": 512,
"hw_name": "testvm_2",
"hw_power_status": "poweredOff",
"hw_processor_count": 2,
"hw_product_uuid": "420cb25b-81e8-8d3b-dd2d-a439ee54fcc5",
"hw_version": "vmx-13",
"instance_uuid": "500cd53b-ed57-d74e-2da8-0dc0eddf54d5",
"ipv4": null,
"ipv6": null,
"module_hw": true,
"snapshots": []
},
"invocation": {
"module_args": {
"annotation": null,
"cdrom": {},
"cluster": "DC1_C1",
"customization": {},
"customization_spec": null,
"customvalues": [],
"datacenter": "DC1",
"disk": [],
"esxi_hostname": null,
"folder": "/DC1/vm",
"force": false,
"guest_id": null,
"hardware": {},
"hostname": "192.0.2.44",
"is_template": false,
"linked_clone": false,
"name": "testvm_2",
"name_match": "first",
"networks": [],
"password": "VALUE_SPECIFIED_IN_NO_LOG_PARAMETER",
"port": 443,
"resource_pool": null,
"snapshot_src": null,
"state": "present",
"state_change_timeout": 0,
"template": "template_el7",
"username": "administrator@vsphere.local",
"uuid": null,
"validate_certs": false,
"vapp_properties": [],
"wait_for_ip_address": true
}
}
}
True
which notifies that the virtual machine is built using given template. The module will not complete until the clone task in VMware is finished. This can take some time depending on your environment.wait_for_ip_address
parameter, then it will also increase the clone time as it will wait until virtual machine boots into the OS and an IP Address has been assigned to the given NIC.Things to inspect