The article provides a detailed description of Proxmox automation with Ansible. Bobcares, as a part of our Proxmox Support Services, offers solutions to every query that comes our way.

Proxmox Automation With Ansible

Software Installation

1. We can install the community-general collections package via ansible-galaxy using the below code:

ansible-galaxy collection install community.general

2. Then we must install Python v2.7 pip by running the below code:

sudo apt install python-pip

3. We can install python v3 pip (pip3) by running the code:

sudo apt install python3-pip

Here, we use python3 pip on the Ansible host machine and Proxmox Machine.  We use Python2.7 pip on the Proxmox machine only if the Ansible playbook throws errors around “Proxmoxer” not installed on the Proxmox host.

4. Then install Proxmoxer by running the code:

sudo pip3 install proxmoxer # For python3 pip (pip3) # OR sudo pip install proxmoxer # For python2.7 pip

Pre-requisites

1. Already set SSH and Authentication to the targeted Proxmox server.
2. Ansible setup using Ansible docs.
3. Basic Ubuntu 20.04, its container, with 2 Cpu cores, 512 MB Memory, and 16 GB of storage.
4. Nameserver at 10.100.0.1 on VLAN 50, the Prod.lab domain.
5. ISO/templates that will reference when setting up the OS are located on a mounted NFS volume called ISOimages_alpha.
6. Storing Container & VM disks on the Local Proxmox volume and using local for the storage volume. if templates are local to the Machine, use local for the Template volume.
7. Proxmox server has a ZFS pool, where all the Container & VM disks are located. This has the Volume name mxzfs.

Creating Playbook

We can create the playbook.yml file and begin the setup structure as shown below.

- name: The name of the Playbook
  hosts: 'The host target' # host.example.com
  tasks:
  - name: 'The name of this task'
    proxmox: # community.general.proxmox module reference
    ...
    # All the proxmox.module parameters go here
    ...

Let’s see the playbook with more details. E.g.,

---
- name: Create new LXC container in Proxmox Cygnus Host

hosts: 'cygnus.prod.lan'
tasks:
- name: 'Create Container'
proxmox:
vmid: '300' # Specifying Container ID
api_user: 'root@pam' # Proxmox user
api_password: apiPassword # Password in plaintext !!!
api_host: 'cygnus.prod.lan' # Proxmox hostname
password: containerPassword # Password in plaintext !!!
hostname: 'test.prod.lab' # Container hostname
node: 'cygnus' # Name of Proxmox host
cores: '1'
cpus: '2'
cpuunits: '1000'
ostemplate: 'ISOimages_Alpha:vztmpl/ubuntu-20.04-standard_20.04-1_amd64.tar.gz' # Or use local:vztmpl/... as discussed
storage: 'mxzfs' # Or use 'local' as discussed
disk: '16'
memory: '512'
nameserver: '10.100.0.1'
netif: '{"net0":"name=eth0,ip=dhcp,ip6=dhcp,bridge=vmbr0,tag=50"}'
searchdomain: 'prod.lab'
state: 'present'

Running Playbook

We can run the playbook using the code:

ansible-playbook playbook.yml

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Conclusion

In this article, we included the method from our Support team for Proxmox automation with Ansible.