AnsiblePlaybooksLocalListing VM names

Listing the names of all virtual machines on an ESXi server

In this particular case the ESXi server was esxihost.

Prerequisites

The following were needed on uvm0:

  • Ansible Galaxy collections:
    • community.vmware
  • Python packages:
    • pyVmomi
    • requests

The uvm0 host had a Miniconda environment dedicated to Ansible, which contained the two Python packages.

Creating the playbook

Executed:

aadmin@uvm0:~/code/it-wiz/devops/ansible/projects/local/playbooks$ touch list_vm_names.yml

Brought list_vm_names.yml to the following form:

- name: List all virtual machines on ESXi server
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: no
  pre_tasks:
    - include_vars: vars.yml

  tasks:
  - name: Get virtual machine information
    community.vmware.vmware_vm_info:
      hostname: "{{ esxi_server }}"
      username: "{{ esxi_username }}"
      password: "{{ esxi_password }}"
      validate_certs: false
    register: vm_info
  - name: Display the list of virtual machine names
    debug:
      msg: "{{ vm_info.virtual_machines | map(attribute='guest_name') | list }}"
    when: vm_info.virtual_machines is defined

Execution of the playbook

Executed:

aadmin@uvm0:~/code/it-wiz/devops/ansible/projects/local$ ansible-playbook playbooks/list_vm_names.yml --ask-vault-pass

Details

    aadmin@uvm0:~/code/it-wiz/devops/ansible/projects/local$ ansible-playbook playbooks/list_vm_names.yml --ask-vault-pass
    Vault password:
    
    PLAY [List all virtual machines on ESXi server] ******************************************************************
 
    TASK [include_vars] **********************************************************************************************
    ok: [localhost]
 
    TASK [Get virtual machine information] ***************************************************************************
    ok: [localhost]
 
    TASK [Display the list of virtual machine names] *****************************************************************
    ok: [localhost] => {
        "msg": [
            "Arch Linux - arvm00",
            "CentOS - pblocal40",
            "Ubuntu Server 24 LTS - uvm0",
            "Ubuntu Desktop 16 - uvm04",
            "Ubuntu Server 14 LTS - uvm05",
            "Ubuntu Server 14 LTS - uvm06",
            "Ubuntu Server 24 LTS - uvm26",
            "Ubuntu Server 24 LTS - uvm27",
            "Ubuntu Server 20 LTS - prod0",
            "Ubuntu Server 20 LTS - test0",
            "Windows 7 Professional - win7vm0",
            "Windows 10 Pro - win10vm0",
            "Windows 10 Pro - win10vm1"
        ]
    }
 
    PLAY RECAP *******************************************************************************************************
    localhost                  : ok=3    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0
Host shutdown