How to build VM using Kickstart and Ansible Playbook ?

[Patel Parimal]

Hi,

I am newbie to Ansible. I have referred the documentation for creating new VM on Ansible Docs - vsphere_guest.

Is there any way to provide kickstart file in Ansible Playbook (say for ex. static HTTP URL like http://192.168.0.1/ks/ks.cfg) to VM for installing OS without any human intervention ?

Thanks,

Parimal

[Noam Greenberg]

Hi 

Ansible can create VM for you but you will need to make your own PXE server 

you need to understand Ansible as PUPPET or chef must have OS install ( linux ) ansible use ssh for config the linux box so ... 

see what i answer you about pxe server 

http://geekface.ca/fedora/?q=pxe

for the ansible 

- name: Test

  hosts: servers

  connection: local

  

  tasks:

    - name: New Vmware guest vm

      vsphere_guest:

        vcenter_hostname: vsenter.domain.com

        username: na...@domain.com

        password: mypass

        guest: "{{inventory_hostname_short}}"

        state: powered_on

        vm_extra_config:

          vcpu.hotadd: yes

          mem.hotadd: yes

          notes: "{{inventory_hostname_short}}"

        vm_disk:

          disk1:

            size_gb: 10

            type: thin

            datastore: mydatastore

        vm_nic:

          nic1:

            type: vmxnet3

            network: Server

            network_type: standard

        vm_hardware:

          memory_mb: 2048

          num_cpus: 2

          osid: centos64Guest

          scsi: paravirtual

        vm_hw_version: vmx-09

        esxi:

          datacenter: mydatacenter

          hostname: ESX-IP ADDRESS

Noam

[Stuart Cracraft]

Hi,

I use Ansible playbook yml to attempt to deploy a vm in vmware/vsphere with pysphere yet it just gives this message when DHCP doesn't respond on the vSphere console and there's no human to hit an F12 there -- that's the point to avoid -- to force it over to the kickstart server. My question is how to force it over to the kickstart server and/or get beyond the F12. I would be comfortable with an Ansible-only solution or secondarily a setting on vSphere to force all Linux reboots to go to kickstart and bypass dhcp.

Network boot from VMware VMXNET3
Copyright (C) 2003-2008 VMware, Inc.
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation

CLIENT MAC ADDR: 00 50 56 8A F9 16 GUID: 420A20B9-EEFD-9BF8-29AD-7EE989411540
PXE-E51: No DHCP or proxyDHCP offers were received.

PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
Operating System not found


Ansible playbook:

- hosts: 127.0.0.1
  connection: local
  user: root
  sudo: false
  gather_facts: false
  serial: 1

  tasks:
  - vsphere_guest:
      vcenter_hostname: sna-vcsa.ourdomain.com
      username: ansible
      password: ouransiblepassword
      guest: SOMENEWHOSTNAME

      state: powered_on
      vm_extra_config:
        vcpu.hotadd: yes
        mem.hotadd: yes

      vm_disk:
        disk1:
         size_gb: 1
         type: thin
         datastore: SOMEDATASTORE
      vm_nic:
        nic1:
         type: vmxnet3
         network: vm
         network_type: standard
      vm_hardware:
        memory_mb: 1024
        num_cpus: 1
        osid: ubuntu64Guest
        scsi: paravirtual
        vm_cdrom:
          type: "iso"
          iso_path: "DATASTOREISO/SOMEOS.iso"
      esxi:
        datacenter: SNA
        hostname: sna1.ourdomain.com

[afro...@gmail.com]

Hi Stuart,

i made a playbook which creates vm machine along with attached iso. i mean, when the vm starts its boot from os. i wanted to use kickstart without pxe could please tell me what i need to add more in my playbook for the same.

My Playbook is:---

---

- name: create some vms

  hosts: localhost

  connection: local

  vars_prompt:

    - name: "vcenter_host"

      prompt: "Enter vcenter host"

      private: no

      default: "vcsa"

    - name: "vcenter_user"

      prompt: "Enter vcenter username"

      private: no

    - name: "vcenter_pass"

      prompt: "Enter vcenter password"

      private: yes

    - name: "vcenter_datacenter"

      prompt: "Enter datacenter name"

      private: no

    - name: "vcenter_datastore"

      prompt: "Enter datastore name"

      private: no

    - name: "esxi_host"

      prompt: "Enter vsphere host"

      private: no

  vars:

#    - vcenter_folder: 'beta'

    - vms:

        - guest: 'test04'

          state: 'powered_on'

          vcpu_hotadd: 'yes'

          mem_hotadd: 'yes'

          notes: 'Ansible Created'

          num_disks: '1'

          disks:

            disk1:

              size: '10'

              type: 'thin'

          network: 'VM Network'

          memory: '1024'

          cpus: '1'

          osid: 'rhel6_64Guest'

  tasks:

    - name: create vms (Single Disk)

      vsphere_guest:

        vcenter_hostname: "{{ vcenter_host }}"

        username: "{{ vcenter_user }}"

        password: "{{ vcenter_pass }}"

        guest: "{{ item.guest }}"

        state: "{{ item.state }}"

        vm_extra_config:

          vcpu.hotadd: "{{ item.vcpu_hotadd|default(omit) }}"

          mem.hotadd: "{{ item.mem_hotadd|default(omit) }}"

          notes: "{{ item.notes|default(omit) }}"

 #         folder: "{{ vcenter_folder }}"

        vm_disk:

          disk1:

            size_gb: "{{ item.disks.disk1.size }}"

            type: "{{ item.disks.disk1.type }}"

            datastore: "{{ vcenter_datastore }}"

 #          folder: "{{ vcenter_folder }}"

        vm_nic:

          nic1:

            type: "vmxnet3"

            network: "{{ item.network }}"

            network_type: "standard"

        vm_hardware:

          memory_mb: "{{ item.memory }}"

          num_cpus: "{{ item.cpus }}"

          osid: "{{ item.osid }}"

          scsi: "paravirtual"

          vm_cdrom:

            type: "iso"

            iso_path: "datastore1/rhel-server-6.6-x86_64-dvd.iso"

        esxi:

          datacenter: "{{ vcenter_datacenter }}"

          hostname: "{{ esxi_host }}"

      with_items: vms

      when: item.num_disks == '1'

[Stuart Cracraft]

Would you like a working session over the network via shared console to try to get some breakthroughs together?

What company do you work for?

--
Has recibido este mensaje porque estás suscrito a un tema del grupo "pysphere" de Grupos de Google.
Para anular la suscripción a este tema, visita https://groups.google.com/d/topic/pysphere/iTNRGbtbans/unsubscribe.
Para anular la suscripción a este grupo y a todos sus temas, envía un correo electrónico a pysphere+u...@googlegroups.com.
Para acceder a más opciones, visita https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[afro...@gmail.com]

yes, when is it possible ? i am in hcl

[Gilberto Valentin]

Was there ever any progress on this? I definitely would be interested in provisioning the resources of a virtual machine in VMware and then have the VM run via Kickstart for the installation without the need of a PXE environment. I can provision the VM just fine with Ansible but I still have to manually pxeboot and select a profile. If there is a way to just pass some Kickstart options, that would be great

[Stuart Cracraft]

None.

We’re going to Apache Mesos with Docker and getting rid of VMware.

> On Jun 19, 2016, at 9:04 AM, Gilberto Valentin <gvale...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Was there ever any progress on this? I definitely would be interested in provisioning the resources of a virtual machine in VMware and then have the VM run via Kickstart for the installation without the need of a PXE environment. I can provision the VM just fine with Ansible but I still have to manually pxeboot and select a profile. If there is a way to just pass some Kickstart options, that would be great
>

> --
> Has recibido este mensaje porque estás suscrito a un tema del grupo "pysphere" de Grupos de Google.
> Para anular la suscripción a este tema, visita https://groups.google.com/d/topic/pysphere/iTNRGbtbans/unsubscribe.
> Para anular la suscripción a este grupo y a todos sus temas, envía un correo electrónico a pysphere+u...@googlegroups.com.

> Para obtener más opciones, visita https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Alejandro Cortina]

Gilberto,

I was stuck as you. packer.io will do the trick quite nicely!

in packer you define in a json file everything and packer will connect to esxi, upload iso, upload kickstart file, install everything and confirm it went ok.

Take a look at a json sample I have working:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/packer-tool/axerLqRe59E

You only need to create a "folder" directory with the kickstart file and point the json to it.

Cheers,

[Stuart Cracraft]

We eventually gave up and are going to Apache Mesos for multi-data-center resource management including clusters.