Ansible Collection: cloud.vmware_ops

This repository hosts the cloud.vmware_ops validated Ansible Collection.

The collection includes a variety of Ansible roles and playbooks to help automate the management of VMware.

It focuses on playbooks and roles that allow users to quickly and easily perform VMware operations tasks. The playbooks cover common use cases and leverage the roles inside the collection. The roles can be used to create your own playbooks and cover custom use cases for your environment.

Requirements

This repository comes with an execution environment definition. This can be used to quickly build a container image that contains all of the software required to run the playbooks and roles in this repository. See execution-environment/README.md for more information.

It is common for people to use localhost to run the tasks in this content since most tasks simply interact with the vSphere environment. If you do not use the execution environment, the following requirements are needed on whatever host runs the tasks:

• Python 3.9 or greater
• Python requirements found in execution-environment/requirements.txt

Once the collection is installed, you can install the python requirements using pip: pip install -r ~/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections/cloud/vmware_ops/execution-environment/requirements.txt

vSphere compatibility

This collection supports vSphere 7.x and 8.x.

Ansible version compatibility

This collection has been tested against following Ansible versions: >=2.15.0.

Installation and Usage

Galaxy Requirements

Required collections are listed in the galaxy.yml and will be installed automatically when this collection is installed.

Installation

This content can be installed from git by anyone with access to the repository.

To consume this Validated Content from Automation Hub, please ensure that you add the following lines to your ansible.cfg file.

# if you have multiple server configurations (validated content, certified content, public content, etc) you can specify those config
# section names here as a comma separated list. For example 'server_list = validated,public,my_galaxy
[galaxy]
server_list = validated

[galaxy_server.validated]
url=https://console.redhat.com/api/automation-hub/content/validated/
auth_url=https://sso.redhat.com/auth/realms/redhat-external/protocol/openid-connect/token
token=<SuperSecretToken>

The token can be obtained from the Automation Hub Web UI.

Once the above steps are done, you can run the following command to install the collection.

ansible-galaxy collection install cloud.vmware_ops

Using this collection

Once installed, you can reference the cloud.vmware_ops collection content by its fully qualified collection name (FQCN), for example:

  - hosts: localhost
    roles:
      - role: cloud.vmware_ops.system_settings

See Also

• Ansible Using collections for more details.

Use Cases

• Use Case Name: Create and Modify Cluster Settings and Perform ESXi Maintenance

  • Actors:
    • System Admin
  • Description:
    • A systems administrator can modify various vCenter cluster settings.
  • Related Playbooks:
    • cluster_settings/disable_high_availability.yml
    • cluster_settings/enable_high_availability.yml
    • cluster_settings/manage_all_settings.yml
    • esxi_management/disable_maintenance_mode.yml
    • esxi_management/enable_maintenance_mode.yml
  • Roles:
    • cloud.vmware_ops.cluster_settings - Set DPM, DRS, vCLS, HA, and vSAN settings
    • cloud.vmware_ops.esxi_maintenance_mode - Manage the maintenance status of an ESXi host
  • Flow:
    • Using the manage_all_settings playbook, control a variety of settings in vCenter
    • Quickly enable or disable high availability on the cluster using the dedicated playbooks
    • Put an ESXi host in maintenance mode to adjust settings on the host, then add it back into production using the esxi_maintenance_mode role
    • When a new ESXi host or datastore has been added to the cluster, include the cluster_settings role to adjust related settings.

• Use Case Name: Create and Manage Virtual ESXi Hosts and a Nested VCenter

  • Actors:
    • System Admin
  • Description:
    • A systems administrator can deploy a virtual vSphere environment for testing or isolation purposes.
  • Related Playbooks:
    • esxi_management/add_esxi_host_to_vcenter.yml
    • esxi_management/remove_esxi_host_from_vcenter.yml
    • esxi_management/reconnect_esxi_host_in_vcenter.yml
    • provision_vcenter/provision_vcsa_on_esxi.yml
    • system_settings.yml
  • Roles:
    • cloud.vmware_ops.provision_virtual_esxi - Provision a set of virtual ESXi hosts on an existing vSphere environment
    • cloud.vmware_ops.vcenter_host_connection - Manage the connection status of an ESXi host to a vCenter appliance
    • cloud.vmware_ops.system_settings - Manage the system settings of a vCenter appliance
    • cloud.vmware_ops.provision_vcenter - Provision a vCenter appliance on an ESXi host or on an existing vCenter cluster
  • Flow:
    • Deploy virtual ESXi hosts on an existing cluster using the provision_virtual_esxi role
    • Deploy a vCenter appliance to one of the new virtual hosts using the provision_vcenter role or provision_vcsa_on_esxi playbook
    • Add the other virtual ESXi hosts to the new vCenter using the add_esxi_host_from_vcenter playbook or vcenter_host_connection role
    • Modify vCenter appliance system settings using the system_settings playbook or system_settings role

• Use Case Name: Manage a VM and Export and/or Deploy as an OVF

  • Actors:
    • System Admin
  • Description:
    • A systems administrator can create or modify an existing VM, export it as an OVF, and deploy the OVF to other clusters.
  • Related Playbooks:
    • provision_vm/manage_vm.yml
    • provision_vm/deploy_ovf.yml
    • export_vm_as_ovf.yml
    • snapshot_management/create_snapshot.yml
    • snapshot_management/remove_all_snapshots.yml
    • snapshot_management/remove_snapshot.yml
    • snapshot_management/revert_to_a_snapshot.yml
  • Roles:
    • cloud.vmware_ops.export_vm_as_ovf - Exports an existing VM as an OVF file
    • cloud.vmware_ops.provision_vm - Create, manage, or delete a VM
    • cloud.vmware_ops.snapshot_management - Manage the snapshots of a VM
    • cloud.vmware_ops.manage_folder - Create or delete a folder
    • cloud.vmware_ops.deploy_ovf - Deploy an OVF file to an ESXi host or existing vCenter Cluster
  • Flow:
    • Create or adjust a VM to prepare it for export using the provision_vm role or manage_vm playbook
    • Optionally take snapshots of the VM using the snapshot_management role or create_snapshot playbook
    • Power off the VM using provision_vm role or manage_vm playbook
    • Export the VM as an OVF file using the export_vm_as_ovf playbook or export_vm_as_ovf role
    • Deploy the VM from an OVF file using the deploy_ovf playbook or deploy_ovf role

Testing

All releases will meet the following test criteria.

• 100% success for Integration tests.
• 100% success for Sanity tests as part of ansible-test.
• 100% success for ansible-lint allowing only false positives.

Contributing

This community is currently not accepting direct contributions. We encourage you to open git issues for bugs, comments or feature requests.

Refer to the Ansible community guide.

Communication

• Join the Ansible forum:

  • Get Help: get help or help others.
  • Posts tagged with 'vmware': subscribe to participate in collection-related conversations.
  • Ansible VMware Automation Working Group: by joining the team you will automatically get subscribed to the posts tagged with 'vmware'.
  • Social Spaces: gather and interact with fellow enthusiasts.
  • News & Announcements: track project-wide announcements including social events.

• The Ansible Bullhorn newsletter: used to announce releases and important changes.

For more information about communication, see the Ansible communication guide.

Support

As Red Hat Ansible Validated Content, this collection is entitled to limited support through Ansible Automation Platform (AAP).

License

GNU General Public License v3.0 or later

See LICENSE to see the full text.