I figure I’d post here first before filing a bug report on GitHub as a sanity check. 
Those who have been in the community longer, let me know if that isn’t the desired order of things when encountering a possible problem.
I currently use the community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory inventory plugin in production, and it and its cache works like a charm. An initial inventory takes under 2 minutes to generate. It is then cached for an hour, and subsequent uses of ansible-inventory complete in seconds, which is expected behavior.
I’m working on transitioning to using vmware.vmware.vms now (part of my execution environment transition effort). The initial inventory takes a bit longer to generate, but it’s acceptable. However, the cache, though it is created, seems to be ignored. Thus, each subsequent run of ansible-inventory takes the same amount of time to complete.
Has anyone else experienced this behavior with vmware.vmware.vms? When comparing the documentation of vmware.vmware.vms and community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory, I have noticed no difference in how caching should be configured.
Relevant Files and Information
Test results for community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
This shows the expected behavior with caching. The second run of ansible-inventory takes seconds.
# I use stat, ls, and sha256sum to show the cache is created and then unaltered after the first run
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ stat /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache
stat: cannot statx '/tmp/ansible_inventory_cache': No such file or directory
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ time ansible-inventory -i vmware_vm_inventory.yml --host my-inventory-item
[DEPRECATION WARNING]: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory has been deprecated. Use vmware.vmware.vms instead. This
feature will be removed from community.vmware in version 7.0.0. Deprecation warnings can be disabled by setting
deprecation_warnings=False in ansible.cfg.
[WARNING]: Found variable using reserved name: tags
{
EXPECTED OUTPUT
}
real 1m44.901s
user 0m28.273s
sys 0m3.607s
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ ls -l /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/
total 104
-rw-r--r--. 1 myuser myuser 103730 Apr 29 13:53 vcenter_community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory_9de88s_5bf4b
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ sha256sum /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/vcenter_community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory_9de88s_5bf4b
d80d02ca853f13f04b5b5fcf45a9d47bff7586c527bc252b08d6d646ffdabc18 /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/vcenter_community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory_9de88s_5bf4b
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ time ansible-inventory -i vmware_vm_inventory.yml --host my-inventory-item
[DEPRECATION WARNING]: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory has been deprecated. Use vmware.vmware.vms instead. This
feature will be removed from community.vmware in version 7.0.0. Deprecation warnings can be disabled by setting
deprecation_warnings=False in ansible.cfg.
[WARNING]: Found variable using reserved name: tags
{
EXPECTED OUTPUT
}
real 0m2.740s
user 0m2.327s
sys 0m0.165s
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ ls -l /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/
total 104
-rw-r--r--. 1 myuser myuser 103730 Apr 29 13:53 vcenter_community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory_9de88s_5bf4b
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ sha256sum /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/vcenter_community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory_9de88s_5bf4b
d80d02ca853f13f04b5b5fcf45a9d47bff7586c527bc252b08d6d646ffdabc18 /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/vcenter_community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory_9de88s_5bf4b
Test results for vmware.vmware.vms
This shows the behavior where the cache appears to be ignored. The second run of ansible-inventory takes nearly the same amount of time as the original run.
# I use stat, ls, and sha256sum to show the cache is created and then unaltered after the first run
[myuser@myhostansible]$ stat /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/
stat: cannot statx '/tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/': No such file or directory
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ time ansible-inventory -i vmware_vms.yml --host my-inventory-item
[DEPRECATION WARNING]: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory has been deprecated. Use vmware.vmware.vms instead. This
feature will be removed from community.vmware in version 7.0.0. Deprecation warnings can be disabled by setting
deprecation_warnings=False in ansible.cfg.
[WARNING]: Found variable using reserved name: name
[WARNING]: Found variable using reserved name: tags
{
EXPECTED OUTPUT
}
real 2m48.336s
user 0m49.858s
sys 0m6.079s
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ ls -l /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/
total 740
-rw-r--r--. 1 myuser myuser 755901 Apr 29 13:37 vcenter_vmware.vmware.vms_051c7s_cd955
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ sha256sum /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/vcenter_vmware.vmware.vms_051c7s_cd955
c61c1f5961bb7c309788a3cbcdceedf1329a303821c2f9cca1c9f51afc916e28 /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/vcenter_vmware.vmware.vms_051c7s_cd955
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ time ansible-inventory -i vmware_vms.yml --host my-inventory-item
[DEPRECATION WARNING]: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory has been deprecated. Use vmware.vmware.vms instead. This
feature will be removed from community.vmware in version 7.0.0. Deprecation warnings can be disabled by setting
deprecation_warnings=False in ansible.cfg.
[WARNING]: Found variable using reserved name: name
[WARNING]: Found variable using reserved name: tags
{
EXPECTED OUTPUT
}
real 2m39.877s
user 0m46.676s
sys 0m5.465s
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ ls -l /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/
total 740
-rw-r--r--. 1 myuser myuser 755901 Apr 29 13:37 vcenter_vmware.vmware.vms_051c7s_cd955
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ sha256sum /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/vcenter_vmware.vmware.vms_051c7s_cd955
c61c1f5961bb7c309788a3cbcdceedf1329a303821c2f9cca1c9f51afc916e28 /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/vcenter_vmware.vmware.vms_051c7s_cd955
ansible --version
[myuser@myhost ansible]$ ansible --version
ansible [core 2.18.5]
config file = /home/myuser/ansible/ansible.cfg
configured module search path = ['/home/myuser/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
ansible python module location = /opt/venv-ansible/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/ansible
ansible collection location = /home/myuser/ansible/collections
executable location = /opt/venv-ansible/bin/ansible
python version = 3.12.5 (main, Apr 2 2025, 00:00:00) [GCC 11.5.0 20240719 (Red Hat 11.5.0-5)] (/opt/venv-ansible/bin/python3.12)
jinja version = 3.1.6
libyaml = True
Relevant bits from ansible.cfg
[defaults]
# (pathlist) Comma separated list of Ansible inventory sources
inventory=./inventory/
# (pathspec) Colon separated paths in which Ansible will search for Inventory Plugins.
;inventory_plugins=~/.ansible/plugins/inventory:/usr/share/ansible/plugins/inventory
[inventory]
# (bool) Toggle to turn on inventory caching.
# This setting has been moved to the individual inventory plugins as a plugin option :ref:`inventory_plugins`.
# The existing configuration settings are still accepted with the inventory plugin adding additional options from inventory configuration.
# This message will be removed in 2.16.
;cache=False
# (string) The plugin for caching inventory.
# Each cache_ item has the same set of comments as above.
;cache_plugin=
# (string) The inventory cache connection.
# Each cache_ item has the same set of comments as above.
;cache_connection=
# (string) The table prefix for the cache plugin.
# Each cache_ item has the same set of comments as above.
;cache_prefix=ansible_inventory_
# (string) Expiration timeout for the inventory cache plugin data.
# Each cache_ item has the same set of comments as above.
;cache_timeout=3600
# (list) List of enabled inventory plugins, it also determines the order in which they are used.
;enable_plugins=host_list, script, auto, yaml, ini, toml
enable_plugins=vmware.vmware.vms, community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory, host_list, script, auto, yaml, ini, toml
vmware.vmware.vms plugin configuration
---
plugin: vmware.vmware.vms
strict: true
hostname: vcenter.fq.dn
username: vcenter_user
password: vault-encrypted-password
validate_certs: False
cache: true
cache_connection: /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache/
cache_plugin: ansible.builtin.jsonfile
cache_prefix: vcenter_
cache_timeout: 3600
filters:
- "tags['urn:vmomi:InventoryServiceTag:TAG_GUID:GLOBAL'] is not defined"
hostnames:
- "name"
properties:
- "name"
- "guest.ipAddress"
keyed_groups: []
gather_tags: True
groups:
datacenter1: "'/datacenter1' in path"
datacenter2: "'/datacenter2' in path"
datacenter3: "'/datacenter3' in path"
...
community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory configuration
---
plugin: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
strict: false
hostname: vcenter.fq.dn
username: vcenter_user
password: vault-encrypted-password
cache: true
cache_connection: /tmp/ansible_inventory_cache
cache_plugin: ansible.builtin.jsonfile
cache_prefix: vcenter_
cache_timeout: 3600
validate_certs: False
filters:
- "(tag_category.MY_TAG_CATEGORY is defined) and ('MY_TAG' in tag_category.MY_TAG_CATEGORY)"
hostnames:
- 'config.name'
properties:
- 'guest.ipAddress'
- 'config.name'
groups:
datacenter1: '"Datacenters/datacenter1" in path'
datacenter2: '"Datacenters/datacenter2" in path'
datacenter3: '"Datacenters/datacenter3" in path'
with_sanitized_property_name: true
with_path: true
with_tags: true
...