community.general.virtualbox – virtualbox inventory source

Note

This plugin is part of the community.general collection (version 3.8.1).

You might already have this collection installed if you are using the ansible package. It is not included in ansible-core. To check whether it is installed, run ansible-galaxy collection list.

To install it, use: ansible-galaxy collection install community.general.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.general.virtualbox.

Synopsis

  • Get inventory hosts from the local virtualbox installation.
  • Uses a YAML configuration file that ends with virtualbox.(yml|yaml) or vbox.(yml|yaml).
  • The inventory_hostname is always the ‘Name’ of the virtualbox instance.

Parameters

Parameter Choices/Defaults Configuration Comments
cache
boolean
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
ini entries:

[inventory]
cache = no

env:ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE
Toggle to enable/disable the caching of the inventory's source data, requires a cache plugin setup to work.
cache_connection
string
ini entries:

[defaults]
fact_caching_connection = None

[inventory]
cache_connection = None

env:ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN_CONNECTION
env:ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_CONNECTION
Cache connection data or path, read cache plugin documentation for specifics.
cache_plugin
string
Default:
"memory"
ini entries:

[defaults]
fact_caching = memory

[inventory]
cache_plugin = memory

env:ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN
env:ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN
Cache plugin to use for the inventory's source data.
cache_prefix
string
Default:
"ansible_inventory_"
ini entries:

[default]
fact_caching_prefix = ansible_inventory_

[inventory]
cache_prefix = ansible_inventory_

env:ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN_PREFIX
env:ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_PLUGIN_PREFIX
Prefix to use for cache plugin files/tables
cache_timeout
integer
Default:
3600
ini entries:

[defaults]
fact_caching_timeout = 3600

[inventory]
cache_timeout = 3600

env:ANSIBLE_CACHE_PLUGIN_TIMEOUT
env:ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_CACHE_TIMEOUT
Cache duration in seconds
compose
dictionary
Default:
{}
Create vars from jinja2 expressions.
groups
dictionary
Default:
{}
Add hosts to group based on Jinja2 conditionals.
keyed_groups
list / elements=string
Default:
[]
Add hosts to group based on the values of a variable.
leading_separator
boolean
added in 2.11 of ansible.builtin
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
Use in conjunction with keyed_groups.
By default, a keyed group that does not have a prefix or a separator provided will have a name that starts with an underscore.
This is because the default prefix is "" and the default separator is "_".
Set this option to False to omit the leading underscore (or other separator) if no prefix is given.
If the group name is derived from a mapping the separator is still used to concatenate the items.
To not use a separator in the group name at all, set the separator for the keyed group to an empty string instead.
network_info_path
string
Default:
"/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/IP"
property path to query for network information (ansible_host)
plugin
string / required
    Choices:
  • virtualbox
  • community.general.virtualbox
token that ensures this is a source file for the 'virtualbox' plugin
query
dictionary
Default:
{}
create vars from virtualbox properties
running_only
boolean
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
toggles showing all vms vs only those currently running
settings_password_file
string
provide a file containing the settings password (equivalent to --settingspwfile)
strict
boolean
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
If yes make invalid entries a fatal error, otherwise skip and continue.
Since it is possible to use facts in the expressions they might not always be available and we ignore those errors by default.
use_extra_vars
boolean
added in 2.11 of ansible.builtin
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes
ini entries:

[inventory_plugins]
use_extra_vars = no

env:ANSIBLE_INVENTORY_USE_EXTRA_VARS
Merge extra vars into the available variables for composition (highest precedence).

Examples

# file must be named vbox.yaml or vbox.yml
simple_config_file:
    plugin: community.general.virtualbox
    settings_password_file: /etc/virtulbox/secrets
    query:
      logged_in_users: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/LoggedInUsersList
    compose:
      ansible_connection: ('indows' in vbox_Guest_OS)|ternary('winrm', 'ssh')

# add hosts (all match with minishift vm) to the group container if any of the vms are in ansible_inventory'
plugin: community.general.virtualbox
groups:
  container: "'minis' in (inventory_hostname)"

Authors

  • Unknown (!UNKNOWN)

© 2012–2018 Michael DeHaan
© 2018–2021 Red Hat, Inc.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/community/general/virtualbox_inventory.html