Ansible for VMware by Examples

Learn to use the Ansible open source IT automation tool to automate your VMware infrastructure. This book contains all of the obvious and not-so-obvious best practices of Ansible automation. Each lesson summarizes a specific use case for the modern VMware infrastructure and is focused on a single module from the most important parameter, including live demo of code and real-life usage.

You'll configure the Ansible Controller to interact with VMware infrastructure using the “community.VMware” Ansible documentation collection and the appropriate Python libraries. Next, learn how to automate the creation of a virtual machine manually and from a template, start and stop using the shutdown and forced-power off a Virtual Machine, take and delete and snapshot, add a new hard disk and expand a currently attached hard disk, as well as gather information for data centers, clusters, host systems, and virtual machines.

By the end of this book, you'll be well-versed in efficiently maintaining a VMware infrastructure with Ansible Automation. You'll also be able to save time and reduce manual errors using simple human-readable automation technology.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

* Automate your VMware infrastructure using Ansible code
* Install Ansible in operating systems such as RedHat, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.
* Write and execute your first Ansible Playbook code
* Troubleshoot the most common error messages

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

IT professionals of every industry who would like a jargon-free understanding of Ansible technology, including VMware, Linux, and Windows Systems Administrators, DevOps professionals, thought leaders, and infrastructure-as-code enthusiasts.

Luca Berton is an Ansible Automation Engineer of Red Hat, based in Brno - Czech Republic. With more than 15 years of experience as a System Administrator, he has strong expertise in Infrastructure Hardening and Automation. Enthusiast of the Open Source supports the community sharing his knowledge in different events of public access. Geek by nature, Linux by choice, Fedora of course.

Chapter 1: Ansible For Beginners With Examples

CHAPTER GOAL: Description of the Ansible Technology and how to write and execute your first Ansible Playbook code.

NO OF PAGES: 5 0

SUB - TOPICS

* What is Ansible
Getting Started * Inventory
* Playbook
* Variables, Fact and Magic Variables
* Vault
* Conditional and Loop
Handler * Role
* Ansible Best Practices
Chapter 2: Install Ansible

CHAPTER GOAL: How to install Ansible in the most common Operating System step by step

NO OF PAGES : 20

SUB - TOPICS:

* ansible community vs ansible-core packages
* Ansible installation in RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8
* Ansible installation in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
* Ansible installation in Fedora 36
* Ansible installation in CentOS 9 Stream
* Ansible installation in Windows
* Ansible installation in SUSE SLES (Linux Enterprise Server) 15
Ansible installation with PIP

Ansible installation in RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9

* Ansible installation in Amazon Linux 2 (AWS EC2)
* Ansible installation in Debian 11
Chapter 3: Ansible For VMware

CHAPTER GOAL: How to automate your VMware infrastructure using Ansible code and troubleshoot the most common error messages

NO OF PAGES: 70

SUB - TOPICS:

* Configure Ansible For VMware
Configure a Python Virtual Environment for Ansible VMware

Ansible troubleshooting - VMware f ailed to Import PyVmomi * Ansible troubleshooting - VMware Unknown error while connecting to vCenter or ESXi
* Ansible troubleshooting - VMware certificate verify failed connecting to vCenter or ESXi
* Create a VMware virtual machine
* Deploy a VMware virtual machine from a template
* Start a VMware virtual machine
* Stop a VMware virtual machine
* Take a VMware virtual machine snapshot
* Delete a VMware virtual machine snapshot
* Add a new hard disk to VMware virtual machine
* Expand a virtual disk in VMware virtual machine
* Gather VMware Hosts information of a cluster
* Get VMware virtual machine UUID
* Ansible Dynamic Inventory For VMware
* Get VMware vSphere Virtual Machine Running Host
* Get VMware datastore status
* Upload a file to the VMware datastore
* Get VMware Guest Tools status
* Upgrade VMware Guest Tools
* Live Migration of a VMware Virtual Machine using vMotion
* Change the boot devices order of a VMware virtual machine
Chapter 4: Conclusion