Introduction

This playbook gives you complete control over Nutanix VM snapshots, ensuring consistency, compliance, and automation without cluttering storage. Adjust retention policies and VM targets as needed for any application tier.

External Documentation:

My Personal Repository on GitHub

Diagram: Snapshot Lifecycle Flow

Use Case

  • Create a daily snapshot
  • Retain only 3 latest snapshots per VM
  • Delete older snapshots automatically

Required Files

  • inventory.yml
  • nutanix_credentials.yml (vault encrypted)
  • rotate_snapshots.yml (main playbook)

Sample Playbook: rotate_snapshots.yml

Snapshots are critical for backup and recovery, but they must be managed correctly to avoid sprawl. With Ansible, you can automate the full snapshot lifecycle on Nutanix AHV, creating, listing, and deleting snapshots through playbooks. This article shows you how to set up reusable snapshot tasks and schedule them reliably.- name: Delete older snapshots
loop: “{{ to_delete }}”
loop_control:
loop_var: snap_name
nutanix.ncp.vm_snapshots:
vm_name: “{{ item.invocation.module_args.vm_name }}”
snapshot_name: “{{ snap_name }}”
state: absent
- name: Snapshot lifecycle for Nutanix VM
hosts: localhost
gather_facts: false
collections:
- nutanix.ncp
vars_files:
- nutanix_credentials.yml
vars:
vm_list:
- web01
- db01
max_snapshots: 3
tasks:- name: Delete old snapshots (retain max_snapshots)
loop: "{{ snap_outputs.results }}"
when: item.snapshots | length > max_snapshots
loop_control:
label: "{{ item.invocation.module_args.vm_name }}"
block:
- name: Sort and trim snapshots
set_fact:
to_delete: "{{ item.snapshots | sort(attribute='creation_time') | map(attribute='name') | list | slice(0, item.snapshots | length - max_snapshots) }}"

Run It

0 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/run_snapshot_rotate.sh

– name: Get snapshot list per VM
loop: “{{ vm_list }}”
loop_control:
loop_var: vm_name
nutanix.ncp.vm_snapshots_info:
vm_name: “{{ vm_name }}”
register: snap_outputs

Summary

ansible-playbook rotate_snapshots.yml --ask-vault-pass -i inventory.yml

Scheduling with Cron

Nutanix Repository on GitHub

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