Help with parsing "vmware_vm_info" output

[Alex Wanderley]

Hello, 

I need to collect some info from VMs in our VMware cluster and am having trouble figuring out how to print only the information I need.

When running the code below: 

       - name: collect VMs in specific folder
         community.vmware.vmware_vm_info:
              validate_certs: False
              hostname: "{{ vcenter_hostname }}"
              username: "{{ vcenter_username }}"
              password: "{{ vcenter_passwd }}"
              folder: "{{ vcenter_folder }}"
         delegate_to: localhost
         register: vm_info

       - name: print VM info
         debug:
            msg: "{{ item['guest_name'] }}"
         with_items: "{{ vm_info.virtual_machines }}"

I'm getting this result:

TASK [print VM info] ***********************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => (item={'guest_name': 'rhel8tst', 'guest_fullname': 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (64-bit)', 'power_state': 'poweredOn', 'ip_address': 'xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx', 'mac_address': ['xxx'], 'uuid': '422c523e-7bb0-1f95-1c16-742c30ba445d', 'vm_network': {'xxx': {'ipv4': ['xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx'], 'ipv6': ['xxx']}}, 'esxi_hostname': '.xxxx', 'datacenter': 'xxxx', 'cluster': 'xxxxx', 'resource_pool': None, 'attributes': {}, 'tags': [], 'folder': None, 'moid': 'vm-502018', 'datastore_url': [{'name': 'xxxx', 'url': 'xxx'}], 'allocated': {}}) => {
    "msg": "rhel8tst"
}

How could I have (in this case) only the VM name "rhel8tst" printed out?

Thanks a lot,

Alex

--

 

Alex Wanderley Application and Infrastructure Analyst II Server Solutions & Automation Financial and Corporate Services | Open City and Technology     780-496-4156  Office 780-819-0273  Mobile   City of Edmonton Century Place, 19th Floor 9803 102A Avenue NW Edmonton AB, T5J 3A3   All information contained in this email post is proprietary to the City of Edmonton, confidential and intended only for the addressed recipient. If you have received this post in error, please disregard the contents, inform the sender of the misdirection, and remove it from your system. The copying, dissemination or distribution of this email, if misdirected, is strictly prohibited.

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[Todd Lewis]

The debug module prints to the job log. It's a common mistake to try to use the job log as formatted output for other purposes, like reports. Instead you could use the ansible.builtin.template module to output the desired data in some other file. Or you can take the often-warned-against shortcut of using the copy module to do the same, like so:

---
- name: Example
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false
  vars:
    vm_info:
      virtual_machines:
        - {'guest_name': 'rhel8tst', 'guest_fullname': 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (64-bit)', 'power_state': 'poweredOn', 'ip_address': 'xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx', 'mac_address': ['xxx'], 'uuid': '422c523e-7bb0-1f95-1c16-742c30ba445d', 'vm_network': {'xxx': {'ipv4': ['xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx'], 'ipv6': ['xxx']}}, 'esxi_hostname': '.xxxx', 'datacenter': 'xxxx', 'cluster': 'xxxxx', 'resource_pool': None, 'attributes': {}, 'tags': [], 'folder': None, 'moid': 'vm-502018', 'datastore_url': [{'name': 'xxxx', 'url': 'xxx'}], 'allocated': {}}
  tasks:
    - name: Show virtual machines guest_name in job log
      ansible.builtin.debug:
        msg: "{{ item['guest_name'] }}"
      with_items: "{{ vm_info.virtual_machines }}"
    - name: Print virtual machines guest_name in output file
      ansible.builtin.copy: # should really use template here
        content: |
            Virtual Machine Names
            {% for vm in vm_info.virtual_machines %}
            - {{ vm['guest_name'] }}
            {% endfor %}
        dest: /tmp/virtual_machine_names.txt

[Ravi yadav]

I have just tested as suggested by Todd, it is working fine for me.

below is the yml github link for the same.

https://github.com/area51coder/ansible_group_issues

Regards

Ravi Y

yoursmartbook.blogspot.com

[root ~]# cat /etc/ansible/reports/virtual_machine_names.txt
Virtual Machine Names
- windows10
- windows server 2008
- windows server 2012 client
- Centos 7-test new-29April2023
- ESXi6.7
- windows server 2012
- New Virtual Machine
- CentosTowerRedHat_192.168.29.71_134
- Centos-7-Ansible new lab_181
- testvm_1
- windows_test
- Ubuntu_Node2
- CentOS_Node1_192.168.29.237