I was talking to my friend about Ansible automation and how we are implementing automated solutions for cloud and on-premise infrastructure. Then he told me that, his team is looking for such tools to automate their Windows servers and Desktops. When I suggested Ansible, he didn’t believe me as he thought Ansible cannot do anything with Windows machines !
Oh.. then I realized that there are some misunderstanding about Ansible and it’s supported platforms as most of them thought Ansible is only available for Linux (or Unix); yes that is true (Ansible is not natively available for Windows yet) but you know, you can use Ansible to manage your Windows machines as well (and network devices, firewall devices, cloud, containers and more).
Do you know, you have more than 100 Windows modules already available to use from Ansible Community.
This is a collection of articles and references about Windows automation using Ansible, published in techbeatly and other platforms.
Ansible talks to Windows
Unlike SSH for Linux machines, Ansible uses Windows PowerShell remoting to automate Windows. Ansible uses the WinRM (Windows Remote Management) protocol which is Microsoft’s built-in HTTP-based remote management technology.
The following matrix is a high level overview of the authentication options:
| Option | Local Accounts | Active Directory Accounts | Credential Delegation | HTTP Encryption |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | Yes | No | No | No |
| Certificate | Yes | No | No | No |
| Kerberos | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| NTLM | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| CredSSP | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Refer to Windows Remote Management to learn more.
Configuring Windows Machine
The first step is to configure your Windows machine to be managed by Ansible. Follow below guides to configure the Windows system with and without SSL methods.
- Configure Your Windows Host to be Managed by Ansible
- How to open WinRM ports in the Windows firewall
- Ansible Windows Management using HTTPS and SSL
Windows Automation Use Cases
(In progress, please share your Windows use cases via email : gini@techbeatly.com)
- Software deployment
- Windows update
- Windows configuration changes
Do you want to learn more about Ansible practical use cases? Check the latest book from the author as follows. Available on Packt and Amazon.
Appendix
- Windows Remote Management
- Automating Microsoft Windows with Ansible (Red Hat)
- Ansible and Windows (Ansible)
- 10 ways to automate Microsoft Windows with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform (Ansible eBook)
- Automate Windows Environments with Ansible (Slides from Boston Event)
- Using Ansible and Windows (Ansible documentation)
- Setting up a Windows Host (Ansible documentation)
- Automating mixed Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Windows Environments (Ansible blog)
- Windows Package Management (Ansible Blog)