# searching for non-virtual machines....

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/searching-for-non-virtual-machines/30032>\
**Category:** AWX Project\
**Tags:** vmware\
**Created:** [April 1, 2019, 4:37pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/searching-for-non-virtual-machines/30032 "2019-04-01T16:37:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dmakovey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@dmakovey](https://forum.ansible.com/u/dmakovey)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 4:37pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/searching-for-non-virtual-machines/30032/1 "2019-04-01T16:37:20Z")

</div>

Hi, I'm trying to figure out how to use Tower Search (  
[https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-tower/3.4.0/html/userguide/search\_sort.html](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-tower/3.4.0/html/userguide/search_sort.html)  
) either ad-hoc or as a smart inventory to pick up all the non-virtual  
machines.

Navigating to my host list I can see that two variables are being  
populated that relate to it:

virtual: vmware  
is\_virtual: 'true'

however tryin to use either one in search yields no success. Going  
through the API I can see that those vars are double-JSON encrypted  
inside the "variables" . So what's the right way of accessing those  
values? I've tried "variables.is\_virtual:false" and  
"variables.virtual:!vmware" even tried to pick up only the virtuals just  
to get rid of extra conditions - no dice. What's the right method to  
accessing the "variables" field for the host from within smart inventory  
or just a search?