Take a VMware Virtual Machine Snapshot - Ansible module vmware_guest_snapshot
By Luca Berton · Published 2024-01-01 · Category: troubleshooting
How to automate taking snapshots named “Ansible Managed Snapshot” to a VMware Virtual Machine “myvm” Ansible Playbook and vmware_guest_snapshot module.
How to Take a VMware Virtual Machine Snapshot with Ansible? I'm going to show you a live Playbook and some simple Ansible code. I'm Luca Berton and welcome to today's episode of Ansible Pilot.
Ansible Take a VMware Virtual Machine Snapshot • community.vmware.vmware_guest_snapshot • Manages virtual machines snapshots in vCenter
Let's talk about the Ansible module vmware_guest_snapshot. The full name is community.vmware.vmware_guest_snapshot, which means that is part of the collection of modules to interact with VMware, community-supported. It manages virtual machine snapshots in vCenter.
Parameters • hostname string / username string / password string / datacenter string / validate_certs boolean - connection details • state string - present / absent / revert / remove_all • remove_children boolean - no/yes • snapshot_name string description string - Name/description of the virtual machine to work with • memory_dump boolean - no/yes - memory snapshots take time and resource
The following parameters are useful in order to Take a VMware Virtual Machine Snapshot using the module vmware_guest_snapshot. First of all, we need to establish the connection with VMware vSphere or VMware vCenter using a plethora of self-explicative parameters: hostname, username, password, datacenter, and validate_certs. Once the connection is successfully established you could specify the desired snapshot state, in this case, "present" to take a snapshot. You could also revert or remove a snapshot with the same Ansible module. If you want to remove a snapshot you could also remove all the dependent snapshots using the parameter remove_children. It's a good practice to set the name and description of the snapshot using thesnapshot_name and description parameters. Advanced practice is to create the memory dump of the virtual machines, please note that memory snapshots take time and resources will take a longer time to create. Default memory dump is disabled but you could enable using memory_dump parameter.
Links • community.vmware.vmware_guest_snapshot
## Playbook
How to Take a VMware Virtual Machine Snapshot with Ansible. I'm going to show you how to take a snapshot of the Virtual Machine named "myvm" using Ansible Playbook setting a name and description to easily find in your VMware vCenter.
code • vm_snapshot_create.yml • vars.yml • inventory
execution
idempotency
before execution
!vmware_guest_snapshot before execution
after execution
!vmware_guest_snapshot after execution
Conclusion Now you know how to create a VMware vSphere Virtual Machine with Ansible.
Related Articles • Ansible Template Guide • Ansible Become Guide • Ansible Inventory Guide
Category: troubleshooting
Watch the video: Take a VMware Virtual Machine Snapshot - Ansible module vmware_guest_snapshot — Video Tutorial