Adding Windows Client to Ansible using WinRM¶

Configuring Window System as Ansible Client¶

Important

Requirements for WinRM to be installed on Windows¶

Windows Version Supported Windows 7,8.1,10,11, Windows Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 2019, 2022
Powershell 3.0 +
.Net 4.0+

Create Service Account on windows machine¶

Use lsrmgr.msc to create user

OR Run the below commands to create user from CMD

net user ansible_admin Pa$$321 /add
net localgroup "Administrators" ansible_admin /add
wmic UserAccount where Name="ansible_admin" set PasswordExpires=False

Verify dotnet version¶

Get-Host | Select-Object Version

Verify winrm version¶

Get-ChildItem 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP' -Recurse | Get-ItemProperty -Name version -EA 0 | Where { $_.PSChildName -Match '^(?!S)\p{L}'} | Select PSChildName, version

Verify WinRM status¶

winrm get winrm/config/Service
winrm get winrm/config/Winrs
winrm enumerate winrm/config/Listener

Setup WinRM using PS1 script¶

$url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ansible/ansible/devel/examples/scripts/ConfigureRemotingForAnsible.ps1"
$file = "$env:temp\ConfigureRemotingForAnsible.ps1"

(New-Object -TypeName System.Net.WebClient).DownloadFile($url, $file)

powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -File $file

Reverify the WinRM listener¶

winrm get winrm/config/Service
winrm get winrm/config/Winrs
winrm enumerate winrm/config/Listener

Configuring Ansible Controller¶

Ansible inventory file

[windows]
server22 ansible_host=192.168.122.11

[window:vars]
ansible_user=ansible_admin
ansible_password=Pa$$321
ansible_port=5986
ansible_connection=winrm
ansible_winrm_transport=basic
ansible_winrm_server_cert_validation=ignore

Ping test playbook¶

---
- name: win_ping module Playbook
  hosts: windows
  become: false
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: test connection
      ansible.windows.win_ping: