# This topic needs a title

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/this-topic-needs-a-title/38861>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** vmware\
**Created:** [September 4, 2024, 2:37am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/this-topic-needs-a-title/38861 "2024-09-04T02:37:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Alex\_Wanderley](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/alex_wanderley/32/3232_2.png) [@Alex\_Wanderley](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Alex_Wanderley)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2024, 2:37am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/this-topic-needs-a-title/38861/1 "2024-09-04T02:37:21Z")

</div>

Hi,

I’ve been trying to solve this but I truly still have lots to learn… Could somebody help?

Given that a VM “creation\_time” snapshot property has this format: “2024-05-26T10:01:21.219280+00:00”.

How could I build a filter for the “community.vmware.vmware\_all\_snapshots\_info” module that would give me VMs whose snapshots were created 2 weeks ago or older?

- name: Collect snapshots older than 2 weeks  
community.vmware.vmware\_all\_snapshots\_info:  
datacenter: “{{ datacenter\_name }}”  
validate\_certs: false  
filters:  
creation\_time: “”  
match\_type: includes  
register: old\_snapshots

Thanks…

Alex

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mahespth](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/mahespth/32/252_2.png) [@mahespth](https://forum.ansible.com/u/mahespth)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2024, 7:10am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/this-topic-needs-a-title/38861/2 "2024-09-04T07:10:45Z")

</div>

Alex,

Does this wok for you as i’ve previously used something similar.

Regards

- name: Gather VMs with snapshots older than 2 weeks  
hosts: localhost  
gather\_facts: no  
tasks:

- name: Get all snapshots info  
community.vmware.vmware\_all\_snapshots\_info:  
hostname: “{{ vcenter\_hostname }}”  
username: “{{ vcenter\_username }}”  
password: “{{ vcenter\_password }}”  
validate\_certs: no  
register: snapshots\_info

- name: Filter snapshots older than 2 weeks  
set\_fact:  
old\_snapshots: “{{ snapshots\_info.virtual\_machines | selectattr(‘snapshots’, ‘defined’) | selectattr(‘snapshots’, ‘select’, ‘creation\_time \<= old\_date’) }}”  
vars:  
old\_date: “{{ (now() - timedelta(weeks=2)).strftime(‘%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S’) }}”

- name: Display VMs with snapshots older than 2 weeks  
debug:  
var: old\_snapshots

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Alex\_Wanderley](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/alex_wanderley/32/3232_2.png) [@Alex\_Wanderley](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Alex_Wanderley)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2024, 8:05pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/this-topic-needs-a-title/38861/3 "2024-09-04T20:05:48Z")

</div>

Hi Stephen,

First of all, thanks for helping…  
(Long read ahead, sorry.)

I’m afraid that did not work for me.

I’m collecting all the snapshots using “community.vmware.vmware\_all\_snapshots\_info”:

- name: Collect snapshots older than 2 weeks  
community.vmware.vmware\_all\_snapshots\_info:  
datacenter: “{{ datacenter\_name }}”  
validate\_certs: false  
register: snapshots\_info

Which does not return “snapshots\_info.virtual\_machines”. Instead, it returns “snapshots\_info.vmware\_all\_snapshots\_info” So, I had to adjust your suggestion to:

- name: Filter snapshots older than 2 weeks  
ansible.builtin.set\_fact:  
old\_snapshots: “{{ snapshots\_info.vmware\_all\_snapshots\_info | selectattr(‘vm\_name’, ‘defined’) | selectattr(‘vm\_name’, ‘select’, ‘creation\_time \<= old\_date’) }}”  
vars:  
old\_date: “{{ (now() - timedelta(weeks=2)).strftime(‘%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S’) }}”

But that gave me this:  
TASK [Filter snapshots older than 2 weeks] \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*  
An exception occurred during task execution. To see the full traceback, use -vvv. The error was: line 0  
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! =\> {“changed”: false}

So, as a test, I tried to define “old\_date” separately using:

- name: Set 2 weeks ago date  
ansible.builtin.set\_fact:  
old\_date: “{{ (now() - timedelta(weeks=2)).strftime(‘%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S’) }}”

Which gave me the error below. (That error makes me believe that our environment (AAP 2.4 + Ansible-core 2.15) perhaps is missing something.)  
TASK [Set 2 weeks ago date] \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*  
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! =\> {“msg”: “The task includes an option with an undefined variable. The error was: ‘timedelta’ is undefined. ‘timedelta’ is undefined\n\nThe error appears to be in ‘/runner/project/dealing\_with\_snapshots.yml’: line 28, column 8, but may\nbe elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.\n\nThe offending line appears to be:\n\n\n - name: Set 2 weeks ago date\n ^ here\n”}

When somehow the “timedelta” error is resolved, do you think I’d be able to populate the “old\_date” variable prior to calling " community.vmware.vmware\_all\_snapshots\_info" and then go with something like this? (Sorry for my lack of knowledge if what I’m asking is complete nonsense…)

- name: Collect snapshots older than 2 weeks  
community.vmware.vmware\_all\_snapshots\_info:  
datacenter: “{{ datacenter\_name }}”  
validate\_certs: false  
filters:  
creation\_time: " {{ selectattr(‘vm\_name’, ‘select’, ‘creation\_time \<= old\_date’) }}"  
register: snapshots\_info

The reason I’m bringing back the idea of using “filters” from vmware\_all\_snapshots\_info is that it would return a, potentially, much shorter list of VMs for me to deal with.

Regards,

Alex

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![utoddl](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/utoddl/32/249_2.png) [@utoddl](https://forum.ansible.com/u/utoddl)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2024, 8:30pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/this-topic-needs-a-title/38861/4 "2024-09-04T20:30:16Z")

</div>

If you don’t have now(), you can probably use this:

```auto
old_date: "{{ lookup('ansible.builtin.pipe', 'date -d \"now - 14 days\" +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S') }}"

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Alex\_Wanderley](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/alex_wanderley/32/3232_2.png) [@Alex\_Wanderley](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Alex_Wanderley)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2024, 11:29pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/this-topic-needs-a-title/38861/5 "2024-09-04T23:29:45Z")

</div>

Hello Todd,

After a slight change on your suggestion (space, instead of “T”: +%Y-%m-%d" "%H:%M:%S), I could have “old\_date” as a time object:

- name: Set 2 weeks ago date  
ansible.builtin.set\_fact:

old\_date: “{{ lookup(‘ansible.builtin.pipe’, ‘date -d "now - 14 days" +%Y-%m-%d" "%H:%M:%S’) | to\_datetime }}”

So, now I can use that in Stephen’s suggestion:- name: Filter snapshots older than 2 weeks  
ansible.builtin.set\_fact:  
old\_snapshots: “{{ snapshots\_info.vmware\_all\_snapshots\_info | selectattr(‘vm\_name’, ‘select’, ‘(creation\_time \<= old\_date’) }}”

But that is still erroring out:

TASK [Filter snapshots older than 2 weeks] \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*

An exception occurred during task execution. To see the full traceback, use -vvv. The error was: line 0

fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! =\> {“changed”: false}

I’m very grateful for all your help, but I don’t intend to consume much more of your time with my problem. So, one last question if you don’t mind:  
Would I be able to convert “creation\_time” which is a string like “2024-05-26T10:01:21.219280+00:00” into a date/time object formatted as “old\_date” mentioned up above? (As I think that the error is related to me trying to compare a string to a date/time object.)

Note: “creation\_time | to\_datetime” does not work. As, in short, it gave me:  
“… The error was: time data ‘2024-05-26T10:01:21.219280+00:00’ does not match format ‘%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S’\n\n…”

Again, thank you…

Alex

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![utoddl](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/utoddl/32/249_2.png) [@utoddl](https://forum.ansible.com/u/utoddl)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2024, 3:59am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/this-topic-needs-a-title/38861/6 "2024-09-05T03:59:43Z")

</div>

Hello Alex,

That error looks very much like the original error. I don’t have vmware snapshots I can play with, so I (and I presume Stephen Maher) are limited to throwing suggestions over the wall so to speak.

Anyway, my guess is that your creation\_time is some complex type - well, more complex than a string anyway, while our Jinja expressions are limited to producing strings. I would be curious to know what “| type\_debug” after your creation\_time produces. It should show the type of the preceding expression. In any case, I don’t think your `old_date` ends up being a datetime object since Jinja produces strings. The “| to\_datetime” part “wares off” so to speak once the expression is resolved, and you end up with a string. Behold:

```auto
utoddl@tango:~/ansible$ **cat test.yml**
---
# test.yml
- name: Date games
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false
  vars:
    old_date: "{{ lookup('ansible.builtin.pipe', 'date -d \"now - 14 days\" +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S') }}"
    start_trigger: "{{ (now(utc=false,fmt='%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S') | to_datetime('%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S')).strftime('%s') }}"
  tasks:
    - name: Set 2 weeks ago date
      ansible.builtin.set_fact:
        new_date: "{{ lookup('ansible.builtin.pipe', 'date -d \"now - 14 days\" +%Y-%m-%d\" \"%H:%M:%S') | to_datetime }}"
    - name: Check types
      ansible.builtin.debug:
        msg:
         - '{{ old_date }}, {{ old_date | type_debug }}'
         - '{{ new_date }}, {{ new_date | type_debug }}'
utoddl@tango:~/ansible$ **ansible-playbook test.yml**

PLAY [Date games] *********************************************************************************************************

TASK [Set 2 weeks ago date] ***********************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost]

TASK [Check types] ********************************************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => 
  msg:
  - 2024-08-21T23:56:21, AnsibleUnsafeText
  - 2024-08-21 23:56:21, AnsibleUnsafeText

```

Since the output of `date` is a string, if you could get `create_time` to be a string also, you could compare them as strings rather than datetime objects. And you probably only need the “+%Y-%m-%d” part anyway.