VMware vSphere infrastructure management with govc CLI and Ansible. This skill should be used when running govc commands (VM lifecycle, snapshots, datastore operations, OVA/ISO deployment, inventory navigation), writing Ansible playbooks with community.vmware or vmware.vmware collections, managing ESXi hosts via esxcli/SSH, working with vSphere REST API via curl, configuring vCenter authentication, understanding vSphere inventory hierarchy (Datacenter/Cluster/Host/VM), or automating VM provisioning and infrastructure operations.
40:Tefb,
Manage VMware vSphere and ESXi infrastructure using govc CLI for ad-hoc operations and Ansible for declarative automation.
| Task | Tool | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Ad-hoc VM ops, scripting, CI/CD | govc | references/govc.md |
| Declarative provisioning, IaC | Ansible | references/ansible-vmware.md |
| On-host troubleshooting, patching | esxcli | references/esxcli.md |
| REST API scripting (curl) | vSphere REST API | references/vsphere-api.md |
vCenter Server
└── Datacenter
├── vm/ ← VMs and templates
├── host/ ← Clusters and ESXi hosts
│ └── Cluster/
│ ├── Host1
│ └── Resources/ ← Resource pools
├── datastore/ ← Storage
└── network/ ← Networks and DVS
govc paths: /<DC>/vm/<name>, /<DC>/host/<cluster>, /<DC>/datastore/<name>, /<DC>/network/<name>
| API | Format | Coverage | Available On |
|---|---|---|---|
SOAP/VIM (/sdk) | XML | 100% | ESXi + vCenter |
REST (/api/) | JSON | ~70% | vCenter only |
VI/JSON (/sdk/vim25/) | JSON | 100% | vCenter only (8.0 U1+) |
Standalone ESXi has no REST API -- use SOAP via govc/pyVmomi, or esxcli via SSH.
Install: nix shell nixpkgs#govc or brew install govc
export GOVC_URL="https://vcenter.example.com/sdk"
export GOVC_USERNAME="[email protected]"
export GOVC_PASSWORD="password"
export GOVC_INSECURE=true
export GOVC_DATACENTER="DC1"
Common operations:
govc about # Connection test
govc ls /DC1/vm/ # List VMs
govc vm.info my-vm # VM details
govc vm.power -on my-vm # Power on
govc vm.power -s my-vm # Graceful shutdown
govc vm.create -m 4096 -c 2 -disk 40GB my-vm # Create VM
govc vm.clone -vm template -on=false new-vm # Clone
govc vm.destroy my-vm # Delete
govc snapshot.create -vm my-vm "snap-name" # Snapshot
govc datastore.upload local.iso isos/file.iso # Upload file
govc import.ova -options=spec.json app.ova # Deploy OVA
govc find / -type m -runtime.powerState poweredOn # Find running VMs
JSON output: append -json to any command, pipe to jq.
Full reference: references/govc.md
Collections: community.vmware (SOAP, mature) and vmware.vmware (REST, certified, newer)
- name: Deploy VM from template
community.vmware.vmware_guest:
hostname: "{{ vcenter_hostname }}"
username: "{{ vcenter_username }}"
password: "{{ vcenter_password }}"
validate_certs: false
name: my-vm
template: ubuntu-template
state: poweredon
cluster: Production
datastore: DS1
hardware:
memory_mb: 4096
num_cpus: 2
Full reference: references/ansible-vmware.md
All tools authenticate via username/password to vCenter SSO or ESXi local accounts.
GOVC_URL, GOVC_USERNAME, GOVC_PASSWORD env varshostname, username, password module params (use vault for secrets)POST /api/session with basic auth, returns vmware-api-session-id tokenroothttps://<vcenter>/uihttps://<esxi>/uihttps://<vcenter>/apiexplorer (Swagger UI)https://<vcenter-or-esxi>/mob