VMware: Inventory scenario guide for hostnames (ansible#71055)

Added a scenario guide for ``hostnames`` parameter for vmware_vm_inventory. Signed-off-by: Abhijeet Kasurde <[email protected]>
pva · Aug 4, 2020 · 0055673 · 0055673
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diff --git a/docs/docsite/rst/scenario_guides/guide_vmware.rst b/docs/docsite/rst/scenario_guides/guide_vmware.rst
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ To get started, please select one of the following topics.
    vmware_scenarios/vmware_requirements
    vmware_scenarios/vmware_inventory
    vmware_scenarios/vmware_inventory_vm_attributes
+   vmware_scenarios/vmware_inventory_hostnames
    vmware_scenarios/vmware_scenarios
    vmware_scenarios/vmware_troubleshooting
    vmware_scenarios/vmware_external_doc_links

diff --git a/docs/docsite/rst/scenario_guides/vmware_scenarios/vmware_inventory_hostnames.rst b/docs/docsite/rst/scenario_guides/vmware_scenarios/vmware_inventory_hostnames.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,127 @@
+.. _vmware_ansible_inventory_using_hostnames:
+
+*************************************************
+Using VMware dynamic inventory plugin - Hostnames
+*************************************************
+
+.. contents:: Topics
+
+VMware dynamic inventory plugin - Customizing hostnames
+=======================================================
+
+
+VMware inventory plugin allows you to configure hostnames using the ``hostnames`` configuration parameter.
+
+In this scenario guide we will see how you configure hostnames from the given VMware guest in the inventory.
+
+Requirements
+------------
+
+To use the VMware dynamic inventory plugins, you must install `pyVmomi <https://github.com/vmware/pyvmomi>`_
+on your control node (the host running Ansible).
+
+To include tag-related information for the virtual machines in your dynamic inventory, you also need the `vSphere Automation SDK <https://code.vmware.com/web/sdk/65/vsphere-automation-python>`_, which supports REST API features such as tagging and content libraries, on your control node.
+You can install the ``vSphere Automation SDK`` following `these instructions <https://github.com/vmware/vsphere-automation-sdk-python#installing-required-python-packages>`_.
+
+.. code-block:: bash
+
+    $ pip install pyvmomi
+
+Starting in Ansible 2.10, the VMware dynamic inventory plugin is available in the ``community.vmware`` collection included Ansible.
+To install the latest ``community.vmware`` collection:
+
+.. code-block:: bash
+
+    $ ansible-galaxy collection install community.vmware
+
+To use this VMware dynamic inventory plugin:
+
+ 1. Enable it first by specifying the following in the ``ansible.cfg`` file:
+
+.. code-block:: ini
+
+  [inventory]
+  enable_plugins = community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
+
+ 2. Create a file that ends in ``.vmware.yml`` or ``.vmware.yaml`` in your working directory.
+
+The ``vmware_vm_inventory`` inventory plugin takes in the same authentication information as any other VMware modules does.
+
+Here's an example of a valid inventory file with custom hostname for the given VMware guest:
+
+.. code-block:: yaml
+
+    plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
+    strict: False
+    hostname: 10.65.223.31
+    username: [email protected]
+    password: Esxi@123$%
+    validate_certs: False
+    with_tags: False
+    hostnames:
+    - config.name
+
+
+Here, we have configured a custom hostname by setting the ``hostnames`` parameter to ``config.name``. This will retrieve
+the ``config.name`` property from the virtual machine and populate it in the inventory.
+
+You can check all allowed properties for the given virtual machine at :ref:`vmware_inventory_vm_attributes`.
+
+Executing ``ansible-inventory --list -i <filename>.vmware.yml`` will create a list of the virtual machines that are ready to be configured using Ansible.
+
+What to expect
+--------------
+
+You will notice that instead of default behavior of representing the hostname as ``config.name + _ + config.uuid``,
+the inventory hosts show value as ``config.name``.
+
+
+.. code-block:: yaml
+
+    {
+      "_meta": {
+        "hostvars": {
+            "template_001": {
+                "config.name": "template_001",
+                "guest.toolsRunningStatus": "guestToolsNotRunning",
+                ...
+                "guest.toolsStatus": "toolsNotInstalled",
+                "name": "template_001"
+            },
+            "vm_8046": {
+                "config.name": "vm_8046",
+                "guest.toolsRunningStatus": "guestToolsNotRunning",
+                ...
+                "guest.toolsStatus": "toolsNotInstalled",
+                "name": "vm_8046"
+            },
+        ...
+    }
+
+Troubleshooting
+---------------
+
+If the custom property specified in ``hostnames`` fails:
+
+- Check if the values provided for username and password are correct.
+- Make sure it is a valid property, see :ref:`vmware_inventory_vm_attributes`.
+- Use ``strict: True`` to get more information about the error.
+- Please make sure that you are using latest version VMware collection.
+
+
+.. seealso::
+
+    `pyVmomi <https://github.com/vmware/pyvmomi>`_
+        The GitHub Page of pyVmomi
+    `pyVmomi Issue Tracker <https://github.com/vmware/pyvmomi/issues>`_
+        The issue tracker for the pyVmomi project
+    `vSphere Automation SDK GitHub Page <https://github.com/vmware/vsphere-automation-sdk-python>`_
+        The GitHub Page of vSphere Automation SDK for Python
+    `vSphere Automation SDK Issue Tracker <https://github.com/vmware/vsphere-automation-sdk-python/issues>`_
+        The issue tracker for vSphere Automation SDK for Python
+    :ref:`vmware_inventory_vm_attributes`
+        Using Virtual machine attributes in VMware dynamic inventory plugin
+    :ref:`working_with_playbooks`
+        An introduction to playbooks
+    :ref:`playbooks_vault`
+        Using Vault in playbooks