VAST Ansible Collection

Production-ready Ansible modules for VAST Data Management System (VMS). Automate VAST storage infrastructure with idempotent, declarative modules for views, policies, authentication, and networking.

Installation

From Ansible Galaxy (Recommended)

Install the latest version directly from Ansible Galaxy:

ansible-galaxy collection install vastdata.vms

To install a specific version:

ansible-galaxy collection install vastdata.vms:==2.1.0

To upgrade to the latest version:

ansible-galaxy collection install vastdata.vms --upgrade

Using requirements.yml

Create a requirements.yml file:

collections:
  - name: vastdata.vms
    version: ">=1.0.0"

Install the collection:

ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yml

From GitHub Releases

Download and install from a specific GitHub release:

# Replace 2.0.0 with the desired version
ansible-galaxy collection install https://github.com/vast-data/vast-ansible/releases/download/v2.1.0/vastdata-vms-2.1.0.tar.gz

From Source

For development or testing from source:

git clone https://github.com/vast-data/vast-ansible.git
cd vast-ansible
ansible-galaxy collection build
ansible-galaxy collection install vastdata-vms-*.tar.gz

Requirements

• Python: >= 3.9
• Ansible: ansible-core >= 2.15
• requests: Python HTTP library (typically already installed with ansible-core)

Quick Start

Authentication

The collection supports two authentication methods:

Token-based (VAST 5.3+)

- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - name: Create a view
      vastdata.vms.views:
        vms:
          host: vast-vms.example.com
          token: "{{ vast_token }}"
        path: /prod/data
        state: present

Username and Password

- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - name: Create a view
      vastdata.vms.views:
        vms:
          host: vast-vms.example.com
          username: admin
          password: "{{ vast_password }}"
        path: /prod/data
        state: present

Supported Modules

This collection currently provides the following modules:

Module	Description
vastdata.vms.views	Manage VAST views (file system exports)
vastdata.vms.viewpolicies	Manage view policies and configurations
vastdata.vms.vippools	Manage VIP pools for network configuration
vastdata.vms.quotas	Manage storage quotas
vastdata.vms.s3policies	Manage S3 bucket policies
vastdata.vms.tenants	Manage multi-tenancy configurations
vastdata.vms.groups	Manage user groups
vastdata.vms.users	Manage user accounts
vastdata.vms.ldaps	Configure LDAP authentication
vastdata.vms.dns	Manage DNS settings
vastdata.vms.eventdefinitionconfigs	Manage event definition configurations
vastdata.vms.nonlocal_group	Manage non-local groups
vastdata.vms.nonlocal_user	Manage non-local users
vastdata.vms.nativereplicationremotetargets	Manage native replication remote targets
vastdata.vms.snapshots	Manage snapshots
vastdata.vms.globalsnapstreams	Manage global snapshot streams
vastdata.vms.protectionpolicies	Manage protection policies (with frames)
vastdata.vms.protectedpaths	Manage protected paths
vastdata.vms.protectedpath_streams	Manage replication streams attached to a protected path
vastdata.vms.user_key	Manage tenant-scoped user access keys
vastdata.vms.activedirectory	Manage Active Directory configurations
vastdata.vms.administrator_role	Manage administrator roles
vastdata.vms.localproviders	Manage local identity providers
vastdata.vms.s3lifecyclerules	Manage S3 lifecycle rules
vastdata.vms.managers	Manage VMS managers
vastdata.vms.manager_password	Update a manager's password
vastdata.vms.manager_authorized_status	Query a manager's authorized status
vastdata.vms.qospolicies	Manage QoS policies
vastdata.vms.apitokens	Manage API tokens
vastdata.vms.apitoken_revoke	Revoke API tokens
vastdata.vms.iamroles	Manage IAM roles
vastdata.vms.iam_role_credentials	Query IAM role credentials
vastdata.vms.iamrole_revoke_access_keys	Revoke IAM role access keys
vastdata.vms.realms	Manage realms
vastdata.vms.callhomeconfigs	Manage Call Home configurations
vastdata.vms.callhomeconfig_register_cluster	Register a cluster with Call Home
vastdata.vms.callhomeconfig_send	Trigger a Call Home send
vastdata.vms.vms	Manage VMS instances
vastdata.vms.vms_configured_idps	Query configured identity providers for a VMS
vastdata.vms.vms_set_max_api_tokens	Set the maximum number of API tokens for a VMS
vastdata.vms.nonlocal_user_key	Manage access keys for non-local users
vastdata.vms.nis	Manage NIS configuration
vastdata.vms.nis_set_posix_primary	Set a NIS provider as the POSIX primary
vastdata.vms.oidcs	Manage OIDC identity provider configurations
vastdata.vms.userquotas	Manage per-user storage quotas
vastdata.vms.webhooks	Manage webhook notification endpoints
vastdata.vms.kerberos	Manage Kerberos configurations
vastdata.vms.kerberos_keytab	Generate or upload a Kerberos keytab
vastdata.vms.permissions_info	List VAST permissions
vastdata.vms.views_info	List VAST views
vastdata.vms.viewpolicies_info	List VAST view policies
vastdata.vms.vippools_info	List VAST VIP pools
vastdata.vms.quotas_info	List VAST quotas
vastdata.vms.s3policies_info	List VAST S3 policies
vastdata.vms.tenants_info	List VAST tenants
vastdata.vms.groups_info	List VAST groups
vastdata.vms.users_info	List VAST users
vastdata.vms.ldaps_info	List VAST LDAP configurations
vastdata.vms.dns_info	List VAST DNS configurations
vastdata.vms.eventdefinitionconfigs_info	List VAST event definition configurations
vastdata.vms.nativereplicationremotetargets_info	List native replication remote targets
vastdata.vms.snapshots_info	List VAST snapshots
vastdata.vms.globalsnapstreams_info	List VAST global snapshot streams
vastdata.vms.protectionpolicies_info	List VAST protection policies
vastdata.vms.protectedpaths_info	List VAST protected paths
vastdata.vms.activedirectory_info	List VAST Active Directory configurations
vastdata.vms.administrator_role_info	List VAST administrator roles
vastdata.vms.localproviders_info	List VAST local identity providers
vastdata.vms.s3lifecyclerules_info	List VAST S3 lifecycle rules
vastdata.vms.managers_info	List VAST managers
vastdata.vms.qospolicies_info	List VAST QoS policies
vastdata.vms.apitokens_info	List VAST API tokens
vastdata.vms.iamroles_info	List VAST IAM roles
vastdata.vms.realms_info	List VAST realms
vastdata.vms.callhomeconfigs_info	List VAST Call Home configurations
vastdata.vms.vms_info	List VMS instances
vastdata.vms.nis_info	List VAST NIS configurations
vastdata.vms.oidcs_info	List VAST OIDC configurations
vastdata.vms.userquotas_info	List VAST user quotas
vastdata.vms.webhooks_info	List VAST webhooks
vastdata.vms.kerberos_info	List VAST Kerberos configurations
vastdata.vms.challengetokens_info	List VAST challenge tokens
vastdata.vms.nonlocal_user_info	List non-local users
vastdata.vms.nonlocal_group_info	List non-local groups

Supported Roles

This collection currently provides the following roles:

Role	Description
vastdata.vms.protectedpath	Orchestrate VAST protected paths (VIP pools, replication peers, protection policies, protected paths, and replication/standby streams)

Module Documentation

View detailed module documentation:

ansible-doc vastdata.vms.views
ansible-doc vastdata.vms.quotas
ansible-doc vastdata.vms.ldaps

Module Features

All modules support:

• ✅ Idempotency - Safe to run multiple times
• ✅ Check Mode - Preview changes with --check
• ✅ Diff Mode - See exact changes with --diff
• ✅ Error Handling - Clear, actionable error messages
• ✅ Ansible Vault - Secure credential management
• ✅ Read-only *_info modules - Discover and look up resources without making changes
• ✅ clear_fields - Explicitly reset optional fields back to their empty/null state (where supported)

Shared Connection with module_defaults

Every module belongs to the vastdata.vms.all action group, so you can declare the vms: connection once for a whole play instead of repeating it on every task:

- hosts: localhost
  module_defaults:
    group/vastdata.vms.all:
      vms:
        host: vast-vms.example.com
        token: "{{ vast_token }}"
  tasks:
    - name: List VIP pools
      vastdata.vms.vippools_info:
    - name: Create a view
      vastdata.vms.views:
        path: /prod/data
        state: present

Testing

Run Tests Locally

The collection includes comprehensive test suites:

# Sanity tests (code quality, documentation)
./test.sh sanity

# Unit tests (module structure validation)
./test.sh unit

# Build collection
./test.sh build

Requirements for Testing

pip install ansible-core

Compatibility

• VAST Software: 5.4.x and 5.5.x - a single collection auto-adapts to each cluster's VMS version (manage mixed-version fleets from one install)
• Python: 3.9+
• Ansible: ansible-core 2.15+

Release Notes

See CHANGELOG.md for release history and version details.

License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE for full details.

About VAST Data

VAST Data is the data platform company for the AI era. Learn more at vastdata.com.

---

Note: This collection is independently developed and maintained. For VAST product documentation, visit VAST Documentation.