Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes
Firstly let me introduce a Windows service called: “Windows Remote Manager” or “WinRM”. This is the Windows feature that allows remote control of Windows machines and many other remote functionalities. In my case I have a Windows 7 laptop with SP1 and PowerShell v3 installed.
Secondly don’t forget that Ansible is developed using Python then a Python library have to manage the WinRM protocol. I’m talking about “pywinrm“. Using this library it’s easy to create simple scripts like that:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import winrm
s = winrm.Session('10.2.0.42', auth=('the_username', 'the_password'))
r = s.run_cmd('ipconfig', ['/all'])
print r.status_code
print r.std_out
print r.std_err
This is a remote call to the command “ipconfig /all” to see the Windows machine network configuration. The output is something like:
$ ./winrm_ipconfig.py
0
Windows IP Configuration
Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : mini7w
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : ymbi.net
Ethernet adapter GigaBit + HUB USB:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : ymbi.net
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : ASIX AX88179 USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-23-56-1C-XX-XX
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::47e:c2c:8c25:xxxx%103(Preferred)
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.2.0.42(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.192
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : mi�rcoles, 28 de enero de 2015 12:41:41
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : mi�rcoles, 28 de enero de 2015 19:17:56
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.2.0.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.2.0.1
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 2063606614
DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-15-F7-BF-36-xx-C5-xx-03-xx-xx
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.2.0.27
10.2.0.1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled
...
Of course, it’s possible to run Powershell scripts like the next one which shows the system memory:
$strComputer = $Host
Clear
$RAM = WmiObject Win32_ComputerSystem
$MB = 1048576
"Installed Memory: " + [int]($RAM.TotalPhysicalMemory /$MB) + " MB"
The Python code to run that script is:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import winrm
ps_script = open('scripts/mem.ps1','r').read()
s = winrm.Session('10.2.0.42', auth=('the_username', 'the_password'))
r = s.run_ps(ps_script)
print r.status_code
print r.std_out
print r.std_err
and the output:
$ ./winrm_mem.py
0
Installed Memory: 2217 MB
In the end it’s time to talk about how to create an Ansible Playbook to deploy anything in a Windows machine. As always the first thing that we need is a hosts file. In the next example there are several ansible variables needed to run Ansible Windows modules on WinRM, all of them are self-explanatory:
[all]
10.2.0.42
[all:vars]
ansible_ssh_user=the_username
ansible_ssh_pass=the_password
ansible_ssh_port=5985 #winrm (non-ssl) port
ansible_connection=winrm
The first basic example could be a simple playbook that runs the ‘ipconfig’ command and registers the output in an Ansible variable to be showed later like a debug information:
- name: test raw module
hosts: all
tasks:
- name: run ipconfig
raw: ipconfig
register: ipconfig
- debug: var=ipconfig
The command and the output to run latest example:
$ ansible-playbook -i hosts ipconfig.yml
PLAY [test raw module] ********************************************************
GATHERING FACTS ***************************************************************
ok: [10.2.0.42]
TASK: [run ipconfig] **********************************************************
ok: [10.2.0.42]
TASK: [debug var=ipconfig] ****************************************************
ok: [10.2.0.42] => {
"ipconfig": {
"invocation": {
"module_args": "ipconfig",
"module_name": "raw"
},
"rc": 0,
"stderr": "",
"stdout": "\r\nWindows IP Configuration\r\n\r\n\r\nEthernet adapter GigaBit
...
]
}
}
PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
10.2.0.42 : ok=3 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0
As always Ansible have several modules, not only the ‘raw’ module. I committed two examples in my Github account using a module to download URLs and another one that runs Powershell scripts.
My examples are done using Ansible 1.8.2 installed in a Fedora 20. But main problems I’ve found are configuring Windows 7 to accept WinRM connections. Next I attach some references that helped me a lot:
If you want to use my tests code you can connect to my Github: Basic Ansible playbooks for Windows.
