vmware_vm_inventory and workflow templates

[Christopher Bachmeyer]

Hi Ansible group,

I am working on constructing a workflow Template using Ansible Tower 3.8.3 with Ansible ver. 2.9.27.   The workflow Template consists of just two job Templates, each one with code residing in separate repos.  I created an Inventory in Ansible Tower with a Source "InventorySource - VMware deployments" that contains the vmware_vm_inventory plugin under Source Variables.

---
# plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
plugin: vmware_vm_inventory
validate_certs: False
with_tags: False
groups:
  vmware: True
properties:
- 'name'
- 'config.name'
- 'guest.ipAddress'
hostnames:
- 'config.name'
filters:
- config.name == "at-test-vmt03t"

The first job Template runs without error, inside and outside of the workflow Template.  The InventorySource is picking up the host group "vmware" and the host "at-test-vmt03t", placing these objects appropriately.  However, I need to manually sync the Inventory for these objects to be picked up.  

The second job template cannot find the host group, "hosts: <host_group>" to execute the second job Template against. I also tried a variable given in the Survey for the ip "hosts: "{{ private_ip }}".  I also have tried using the set_stats module but I found this doesn't work either.  What am I missing here?

Thanks!

[Rowe, Walter P. (Fed)]

Are you trying to get a real-time inventory or are you scheduling an inventory update in ansible tower?

Walter
--
Walter Rowe, Division Chief
Infrastructure Services, OISM
Mobile: 202.355.4123

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[Christopher Bachmeyer]

Hi Walter, 

I am trying to get a real-time inventory based off of job Template 1 (jT1).  I added a filter to the plug-in to filter for the config.name.  I "think" ideally I'd like to filter based on a tag, i.e. those instance(s) with tag would be put into the specified Inventory.  Job Template 2 (jT2) would then execute using the tagged inventory.  That make sense?

The documentation for the vmware inventory filtering is quite poor so I am not sure, yet, on how to filter for tags.  

In a separate directory I do have an ansible.cfg with the enable_plugins parameter and the vmware_vm_inventory.yml.  I can grab a list of the inventory by running ... 
"$  ansible-inventory -i vmware_vm_inventory.yml --list"

The goal is to create vms from a template and hence new inventory then shuttle this inventory over to jT2 for any additional post-processing.  

Hope this helps!

[Rowe, Walter P. (Fed)]

So .. the vmware_vm_inventory .. I sense from the documentation that this builds an inventory that is only valid for the context of the running playbook. You cannot pass that inventory downstream in a workflow to another playbook. You could create a list of hostnames as an artifact using set_stats in JT1. In JT2 craft a simple first play that runs on hosts: localhost and builds an inventory group using addhost, and then reference that inventory group in "hosts: my_group" in play number 2 in the JT2. use that same variable in the hosts argument.

JT1:

- name: create my_hosts list artifact for downstream jobs templates

  set_stats:
    data:
      my_hosts: "{{ list of hostnames from vmware_vm_inventory plugin }}"

JT2:

- name: build dynamic inventory host group from upstream artifact my_hosts list
  hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - name: add {{ item | lower }}
      add_host:
        name: "{{ vm_guest_name | lower }}"
        group: my_hosts_group
      loop: "{{ my_hosts }}"

- name: execute tasks against dynamic inventory group my_hosts_group
  hosts: my_hosts_group
  tasks:
    - name: task1 for vm_group inventory

      some_module:

    - name: taskN for vm_group inventory

      some_module:

See if this gets you going ...

Walter
--
Walter Rowe, Division Chief
Infrastructure Services, OISM
Mobile: 202.355.4123

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ansible-project/8bc2c029-0c47-4e00-80df-81d3022f7389n%40googlegroups.com.