Ansible with VMware – Initial setup of ansible “ubuntu” and pyvmomi – Part 1

The first thing about ansible is that it is agentless so makes it easy to automate tasks but the destination does requires ssh. Purpose of it is to automate repeatable tasks, such as login to vcenter and delete all snapshots once a week as a example. The automation tasks are called playbook.

First think we need is a linux machine with Python installed, this linux machine will be the control node that runs ansible. I will be using a ubuntu box.

I have just completed a fresh operating system install of ubuntu, it will need internet access.

Let checks if python is installed.

python3 --version
//otherwise to install use 
sudo apt install python3-full

Next we will install ansible

//This command will install everything

pipx install --include-deps ansible

//if you want minimum install use

pipx install ansible-core

//if pipx is not installed you will need to install it first

sudo apt update
sudo apt install pipx
pipx ensurepath
sudo pipx ensurepath --global 

//Back to installing ansible

pipx install --include-deps ansible

Now I will install additional python dependencies that may be needed

 pipx inject ansible argcomplete

Now lets check our ansible version

ansible --version

Now lets make the linux box operational ready like ssh, FQDN, dns and domain

sudo apt install openssh-server
sudo systemctl start ssh
sudo systemctl enable ssh
sudo ufw allow ssh

//also update your FQDN on server

hostname cna.vmware.local

//add dns server and domain search here /etc/resolv.conf

sudo nano /etc/resolv.conf

Next lets install the products for vsphere, pyVmomi is an open-source Python binding for several vSphere SOAP-based APIs.

sudo apt install python3-pip

//forces install of pyvmomi

pip install pyvmomi --break-system-packages

Now lets get some sample projects.

sudo apt install git

sudo git clone https://github.com/vmware/pyvmomi-community-samples.git

in the sample directory there are many python scripts to run task against vcenter

Let try the getting the details from vcenter and deleting a snapshot.

user@cna:/etc/ansible/pyvmomi-community-samples/samples$ python3 vcenter_details.py -s 192.168.1.13 -u administrator@vsphere.local -p VMware1! -nossl

Revert snapshot example

python3 snapshot_operations.py -s 192.168.1.13 -u administrator@vsphere.local -p VMware1! -nossl -v vcf9-esxi-01 -op revert --snapshot-name "before deploy"