• Blog
  • Ansible community forum
  • Documentation
Ansible Logo
Ansible Community Documentation
Ansible

Ansible getting started

  • Getting started with Ansible
  • Getting started with Execution Environments

Installation, Upgrade & Configuration

  • Installation Guide
  • Ansible Porting Guides

Using Ansible

  • Building Ansible inventories
  • Using Ansible command line tools
  • Using Ansible playbooks
  • Protecting sensitive data with Ansible vault
  • Using Ansible modules and plugins
  • Using Ansible collections
  • Using Ansible on Windows, BSD, and z/OS UNIX
  • Ansible tips and tricks

Contributing to Ansible

  • Ansible Community Guide
  • Ansible Collections Contributor Guide
  • ansible-core Contributors Guide
  • Advanced Contributor Guide
  • Ansible documentation style guide

Extending Ansible

  • Developer Guide

Common Ansible Scenarios

  • Legacy Public Cloud Guides

Network Automation

  • Network Getting Started
  • Network Advanced Topics
  • Network Developer Guide

Ansible Galaxy

  • Galaxy User Guide
  • Galaxy Developer Guide

Reference & Appendices

  • Collection Index
    • Collections in the Amazon Namespace
    • Collections in the Ansible Namespace
    • Collections in the Arista Namespace
    • Collections in the Awx Namespace
    • Collections in the Azure Namespace
    • Collections in the Check_point Namespace
    • Collections in the Chocolatey Namespace
    • Collections in the Cisco Namespace
    • Collections in the Cloud Namespace
    • Collections in the Cloudscale_ch Namespace
    • Collections in the Community Namespace
      • Community.Aws
      • Community.Ciscosmb
      • Community.Crypto
      • Community.Digitalocean
      • Community.Dns
      • Community.Docker
      • Community.General
      • Community.Grafana
      • Community.Hashi_Vault
      • Community.Hrobot
      • Community.Library_Inventory_Filtering_V1
      • Community.Libvirt
      • Community.Mongodb
      • Community.Mysql
      • Community.Okd
      • Community.Postgresql
      • Community.Proxysql
      • Community.Rabbitmq
      • Community.Routeros
      • Community.Sap_Libs
      • Community.Sops
      • Community.Vmware
        • Description
        • Developer Guide
        • Plugin Index
      • Community.Windows
      • Community.Zabbix
    • Collections in the Containers Namespace
    • Collections in the Cyberark Namespace
    • Collections in the Dellemc Namespace
    • Collections in the F5networks Namespace
    • Collections in the Fortinet Namespace
    • Collections in the Frr Namespace
    • Collections in the Gluster Namespace
    • Collections in the Google Namespace
    • Collections in the Grafana Namespace
    • Collections in the Hetzner Namespace
    • Collections in the Hitachivantara Namespace
    • Collections in the Hpe Namespace
    • Collections in the Ibm Namespace
    • Collections in the Ieisystem Namespace
    • Collections in the Infinidat Namespace
    • Collections in the Infoblox Namespace
    • Collections in the Inspur Namespace
    • Collections in the Junipernetworks Namespace
    • Collections in the Kaytus Namespace
    • Collections in the Kubernetes Namespace
    • Collections in the Kubevirt Namespace
    • Collections in the Lowlydba Namespace
    • Collections in the Mellanox Namespace
    • Collections in the Microsoft Namespace
    • Collections in the Netapp Namespace
    • Collections in the Netapp_eseries Namespace
    • Collections in the Netbox Namespace
    • Collections in the Ngine_io Namespace
    • Collections in the Openstack Namespace
    • Collections in the Openvswitch Namespace
    • Collections in the Ovirt Namespace
    • Collections in the Purestorage Namespace
    • Collections in the Sensu Namespace
    • Collections in the Servicenow Namespace
    • Collections in the Splunk Namespace
    • Collections in the T_systems_mms Namespace
    • Collections in the Telekom_mms Namespace
    • Collections in the Theforeman Namespace
    • Collections in the Vmware Namespace
    • Collections in the Vultr Namespace
    • Collections in the Vyos Namespace
    • Collections in the Wti Namespace
  • Indexes of all modules and plugins
  • Playbook Keywords
  • Return Values
  • Ansible Configuration Settings
  • Controlling how Ansible behaves: precedence rules
  • YAML Syntax
  • Python 3 Support
  • Interpreter Discovery
  • Releases and maintenance
  • Testing Strategies
  • Sanity Tests
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Glossary
  • Ansible Reference: Module Utilities
  • Special Variables
  • Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
  • Ansible Automation Hub
  • Logging Ansible output

Roadmaps

  • Ansible Roadmap
  • ansible-core Roadmaps




Ansible
  • Collection Index
  • Collections in the Community Namespace
  • Community.Vmware
  • community.vmware.vmware_guest_controller module – Manage disk or USB controllers related to virtual machine in given vCenter infrastructure


community.vmware.vmware_guest_controller module – Manage disk or USB controllers related to virtual machine in given vCenter infrastructure

Note

This module is part of the community.vmware collection (version 5.6.0).

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.vmware.

To use it in a playbook, specify: community.vmware.vmware_guest_controller.

  • Synopsis

  • Parameters

  • Notes

  • Examples

  • Return Values

Synopsis

  • This module can be used to add, remove disk controllers or USB controllers belonging to given virtual machine.

Parameters

Parameter

Comments

controllers

list / elements=dictionary

A list of disk or USB controllers to add or remove.

Total 4 disk controllers with the same type are allowed per VM.

Total 2 USB controllers are allowed per VM, 1 USB 2.0 and 1 USB 3.0 or 3.1.

For specific guest OS, supported controller types please refer to VMware Compatibility Guide.

bus_sharing

string

Bus sharing type for SCSI controller.

Choices:

  • "noSharing" ← (default)

  • "physicalSharing"

  • "virtualSharing"

controller_number

integer

Disk controller bus number. When controllers[].state=absent, this parameter is required.

When controllers[].type=usb2 or controllers[].type=usb3, this parameter is not required.

Choices:

  • 0

  • 1

  • 2

  • 3

state

string / required

Add new controller or remove specified existing controller.

If set to absent, the specified controller will be removed from virtual machine when there is no disk or device attaching to it.

If specified controller is removed or not exist, no action will be taken only warning message.

If set to present, new controller with specified type will be added.

If the number of controller with specified controller type reaches it’s maximum, no action will be taken only warning message.

Choices:

  • "present"

  • "absent"

type

string / required

Type of disk or USB controller.

From vSphere 6.5 and virtual machine with hardware version 13, nvme controller starts to be supported.

Choices:

  • "buslogic"

  • "lsilogic"

  • "lsilogicsas"

  • "paravirtual"

  • "sata"

  • "nvme"

  • "usb2"

  • "usb3"

datacenter

string

The datacenter name to which virtual machine belongs to.

Default: "ha-datacenter"

folder

string

Destination folder, absolute or relative path to find an existing guest.

This is a required parameter, only if multiple VMs are found with same name.

The folder should include the datacenter. ESX’s datacenter is ha-datacenter

Examples:

folder: /ha-datacenter/vm

folder: ha-datacenter/vm

folder: /datacenter1/vm

folder: datacenter1/vm

folder: /datacenter1/vm/folder1

folder: datacenter1/vm/folder1

folder: /folder1/datacenter1/vm

folder: folder1/datacenter1/vm

folder: /folder1/datacenter1/vm/folder2

gather_disk_controller_facts

boolean

Whether to collect existing disk and USB controllers facts only.

When this parameter is set to true, controllers parameter will be ignored.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

hostname

string

The hostname or IP address of the vSphere vCenter or ESXi server.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_HOST will be used instead.

moid

string

Managed Object ID of the instance to manage if known, this is a unique identifier only within a single vCenter instance.

This is required if name or uuid is not supplied.

name

string

Name of the virtual machine.

This is a required parameter, if parameter uuid or moid is not supplied.

password

aliases: pass, pwd

string

The password of the vSphere vCenter or ESXi server.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_PASSWORD will be used instead.

port

integer

The port number of the vSphere vCenter or ESXi server.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_PORT will be used instead.

Default: 443

proxy_host

string

Address of a proxy that will receive all HTTPS requests and relay them.

The format is a hostname or a IP.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_PROXY_HOST will be used instead.

proxy_port

integer

Port of the HTTP proxy that will receive all HTTPS requests and relay them.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_PROXY_PORT will be used instead.

sleep_time

integer

The sleep time in seconds after VM reconfigure task completes, used when not get the updated VM controller facts after VM reconfiguration.

This parameter is not required. Maximum value is 600.

Default: 10

use_instance_uuid

boolean

Whether to use the VMware instance UUID rather than the BIOS UUID.

Choices:

  • false ← (default)

  • true

username

aliases: admin, user

string

The username of the vSphere vCenter or ESXi server.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_USER will be used instead.

uuid

string

UUID of the instance to gather facts if known, this is VMware’s unique identifier.

This is a required parameter, if parameter name or moid is not supplied.

validate_certs

boolean

Allows connection when SSL certificates are not valid. Set to false when certificates are not trusted.

If the value is not specified in the task, the value of environment variable VMWARE_VALIDATE_CERTS will be used instead.

Choices:

  • false

  • true ← (default)

Notes

Note

  • All modules requires API write access and hence is not supported on a free ESXi license.

  • All variables and VMware object names are case sensitive.

Examples

- name: Add disk and USB 3.0 controllers for virtual machine located by name
  community.vmware.vmware_guest_controller:
    hostname: "{{ vcenter_hostname }}"
    username: "{{ vcenter_username }}"
    password: "{{ vcenter_password }}"
    datacenter: "{{ datacenter_name }}"
    name: test_VM
    controllers:
      - state: present
        type: sata
      - state: present
        type: nvme
      - state: present
        type: usb3
  delegate_to: localhost
  register: disk_controller_facts

- name: Remove disk controllers and USB 2.0 from virtual machine located by moid
  community.vmware.vmware_guest_controller:
    hostname: "{{ vcenter_hostname }}"
    username: "{{ vcenter_username }}"
    password: "{{ vcenter_password }}"
    datacenter: "{{ datacenter_name }}"
    moid: vm-33
    controllers:
      - state: absent
        controller_number: 1
        type: sata
      - state: absent
        controller_number: 0
        type: nvme
      - state: absent
        type: usb2
  delegate_to: localhost
  register: disk_controller_facts

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key

Description

disk_controller_status

dictionary

metadata about the virtual machine’s existing disk controllers or after adding or removing operation

Returned: always

Sample: {"nvme": {"0": {"controller_busnumber": 0, "controller_controllerkey": 100, "controller_devicekey": 31000, "controller_disks_devicekey": [], "controller_label": "NVME controller 0", "controller_summary": "NVME controller 0", "controller_unitnumber": 30}}, "sata": {"0": {"controller_busnumber": 0, "controller_controllerkey": 100, "controller_devicekey": 15000, "controller_disks_devicekey": [16000, 16001], "controller_label": "SATA controller 0", "controller_summary": "AHCI", "controller_unitnumber": 24}}, "scsi": {"0": {"controller_bus_sharing": "noSharing", "controller_busnumber": 0, "controller_controllerkey": 100, "controller_devicekey": 1000, "controller_disks_devicekey": [2000], "controller_label": "SCSI controller 0", "controller_summary": "LSI Logic SAS", "controller_unitnumber": 3}, "1": {"controller_bus_sharing": "physicalSharing", "controller_busnumber": 1, "controller_controllerkey": 100, "controller_devicekey": 1001, "controller_disks_devicekey": [], "controller_label": "SCSI controller 1", "controller_summary": "VMware paravirtual SCSI", "controller_unitnumber": 4}}, "usb2": {"0": {"controller_busnumber": 0, "controller_controllerkey": 100, "controller_devicekey": 7000, "controller_disks_devicekey": [], "controller_label": "USB Controller", "controller_summary": "Auto connect Disabled", "controller_unitnumber": 22}}}

Authors

  • Diane Wang (@Tomorrow9)

Collection links

  • Issue Tracker
  • Homepage
  • Repository (Sources)
Previous Next

© Copyright Ansible project contributors. Last updated on May 06, 2025.