AnsibleByExample

Get VMware vSphere Virtual Machine UUID — Ansible module vmware_guest_info

Beginneransiblevmwareinfrastructurelinux
2024-01-013By Luca Berton

Lesson 1 of 15 in Foundations

Ansible Foundations to Production — full curriculum
  1. 1. Introduction to Ansible and Automation
  2. 2. Installing and Configuring Ansible
  3. 3. Running Ad-Hoc Commands
  4. 4. Writing Your First Playbook
  5. 5. Understanding and Using Modules
  6. 6. Variables and Facts
  7. 7. Conditionals and Loops
  8. 8. Handlers and Idempotency
  9. 9. Structuring Projects with Roles
  10. 10. Inventory Management
  11. 11. Using Ansible Vault for Secrets
  12. 12. Debugging and Troubleshooting
  13. 13. Real-World Automation Examples
  14. 14. Final Project: Deploy a Web Server
  15. 15. Bonus - What's Next with Ansible?
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How to Get VMware vSphere Virtual Machine UUID with Ansible?

Ansible Get VMware vSphere Virtual Machine UUID

  • community.vmware.vmware_guest_info
  • Gather info about a single VM

Let's talk about the Ansible module vmware_guest_info. The full name is community.vmware.vmware_guest_info, which means that is part of the collection of modules to interact with VMware, community-supported. The module's purpose is to gather info about a single VM.

Parameters

  • hostname string / port integer / username string / password string / datacenter string / validate_certs boolean - connection details
  • name string - Virtual machine name

The following parameters are useful in order to Get VMware vSphere Virtual Machine UUID using the module vmware_guest_info. First of all, we need to establish the connection with VMware vSphere or VMware vCenter using a plethora of self-explicative parameters: hostname, port, username, password, datacenter, and validate_certs. Once the connection is successfully established you could specify the virtual machine name to obtain all information about it.

Playbook

How to Get VMware vSphere Virtual Machine UUID with Ansible. I'm going to show you how to Gather Information about a specific "myvm" VMware Virtual Machine and select the UUID using Ansible Playbook.

code

  • vm_uuid.yml
---
- name: vm UUID Playbook
  hosts: localhost
  become: false
  gather_facts: false
  collections:
    - community.vmware
  pre_tasks:
    - include_vars: vars.yml
  tasks:
    - name: Get VM UUID
      vmware_guest_info:
        hostname: "{{ vcenter_hostname }}"
        username: "{{ vcenter_username }}"
        password: "{{ vcenter_password }}"
        datacenter: "{{ vcenter_datacenter }}"
        validate_certs: "{{ vcenter_validate_certs }}"
        name: "{{ vm_name }}"
      register: detailed_vm_info
    - name: print VM UUID
      ansible.builtin.debug:
        var: detailed_vm_info.instance.hw_product_uuid
  • vars.yml
---
vcenter_hostname: "vmware.example.com"
vcenter_datacenter: "vmwaredatacenter"
vcenter_validate_certs: false
vcenter_username: "username@vsphere.local"
vcenter_password: "MySecretPassword123"
vm_name: "myvm"

execution

$ ansible-playbook vm_uuid.yml 
[WARNING]: provided hosts list is empty, only localhost is available. Note that the implicit localhost
does not match 'all'
PLAY [vm UUID Playbook] ***************************************************************************************
TASK [include_vars] ***************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]
TASK [Get VM UUID] ****************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]
TASK [print VM UUID] **************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
    "detailed_vm_info.instance.hw_product_uuid": "4225a846-b176-892d-0e27-10a4106269a0"
}
PLAY RECAP ************************************************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=3    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0

idempotency

$ ansible-playbook vm_uuid.yml 
[WARNING]: provided hosts list is empty, only localhost is available. Note that the implicit localhost
does not match 'all'
PLAY [vm UUID Playbook] ***************************************************************************************
TASK [include_vars] ***************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]
TASK [Get VM UUID] ****************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]
TASK [print VM UUID] **************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => {
    "detailed_vm_info.instance.hw_product_uuid": "4225a846-b176-892d-0e27-10a4106269a0"
}
PLAY RECAP ************************************************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=3    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0
vSphere

after execution

vmware_guest_info after execution

code with ❤️ in GitHub

Conclusion

Now you know how to Get VMware vSphere Virtual Machine UUID with Ansible.

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