Inventory Plugin Returns Host Variables in Unexpected Structure

[jamesmarshall24]

SUMMARY

Host variables returned by vmware_vm_inventory display complex variables in single line format rather than formatted correctly in a dict/list

ISSUE TYPE

• Bug Report

COMPONENT NAME

community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory

ANSIBLE VERSION

Ansible 2.9.18

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

1. ansible-galaxy collection install community.vmware
2. ansible-inventory -i vmware.yml --list

plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
validate_certs: False
properties:
#- 'all'
- 'name'
- 'config.name'
- 'config.guestId'
- 'config.uuid'
- 'summary.runtime.powerState'
- 'guest.hostName'
- 'guest.ipAddress'
- 'guest.ipStack'
- 'guest.guestFullName'
- 'guest.net'
- 'guest.toolsRunningStatus'
- 'guest.toolsVersion'
- 'guest.toolsStatus'
- 'guest.toolsVersionStatus'
- 'guestHeartbeatStatus'
#- 'customValue'
#- 'customValue'
keyed_groups: [
#  {key: 'config.guestId', separator: ''}
#  {key: 'summary.runtime.powerState', separator: ''},
   {key: 'tags', separator: ''}
]

EXPECTED RESULTS

Variables within config are correctly aligned in the dictionary

ansible_host: 10.10.2.20
config:
  guestId: rhel7_64Guest
  name: test-vm
  uuid: (redacted)
guest:
  guestFullName: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit)

ACTUAL RESULTS

ansible_host: 10.10.2.20
config.guestId: rhel7_64Guest
config.name: test-vm
config.uuid: (redacted)
guest.guestFullName: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit)

No "config" dictionary found at all in host vars. Referencing config.uuid in a playbook using this plugin results in variable not found.

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[Akasurde]

@jamesmarshall24 Thanks for reporting this issue. If I understand this correctly, you want to have dictionaries inside the hostvars. For this feature, there is a configurable parameter called with_nested_properties which is False by default. You will get the following output if this parameter is set to True.

ansible-inventory -i 712_vmware.yml --list
{
    "_meta": {
        "hostvars": {
            "CentOS7_Rest": {
                "config": {
                    "guestId": "otherLinux64Guest",
                    "name": "CentOS7_Rest",
                    "uuid": "420777a5-c08b-2229-f7ea-0d90375c6c6b"
                },
...

Let me know if this satisfies your requirement.

needs_info

[jamesmarshall24]

@jamesmarshall24 Thanks for reporting this issue. If I understand this correctly, you want to have dictionaries inside the hostvars. For this feature, there is a configurable parameter called with_nested_properties which is False by default. You will get the following output if this parameter is set to True.

ansible-inventory -i 712_vmware.yml --list
{
    "_meta": {
        "hostvars": {
            "CentOS7_Rest": {
                "config": {
                    "guestId": "otherLinux64Guest",
                    "name": "CentOS7_Rest",
                    "uuid": "420777a5-c08b-2229-f7ea-0d90375c6c6b"
                },
...

Thanks @Akasurde I over looked that configuration. If with that added to the yml spec, I get both. Is this expected?

ansible-inventory -i vmware.yml --list
[...]
"name": {
    "config": {
        "guestId": "rhel8_64Guest", 
        "name": "some-rhel8", 
        "uuid": "redact"
    }, 
    "config.guestId": "rhel8_64Guest", 
    "config.name": "some-rhel8", 
    "config.uuid": "redact",
[...]

The issue I'm mainly seeing are these in-line variables being written to Tower host variables. After adding that param to the yml spec, I at least don't see any undefined errors in Tower.

[Akasurde]

@jamesmarshall24 Yes, this is expected behavior (to have in-line variables with nested variables when with_nested_properties is True).

[Akasurde]

Since with_nested_properties feature was added later, we decided to set it False (default value) to maintain backward compatibility.

[Akasurde]

resolved_by_pr #815