Managing remote Windows nodes?

[Alex-SF]

Hi all,

Starting to hear about using Rundeck to manage remote windows nodes. I
am curious if anyone here has already been doing that. If so, would be
great to hear about your experience.

Thanks

[Bertrand Juglas]

Hi all,
Currently, i manage Windows nodes than Linux nodes so if someone knows
how i can manage Windows nodes with RunDeck, please let me know.
Have a good weekend.

2011/3/11 Alex-SF <aho...@users.sourceforge.net>:

[Jeremy Monnet]

Hi,

First install a Windows sshd, then send commands :-) (haven't tried it yet, though)

Jeremy

[Bertrand Juglas]

But with the newest versions of Windows, comes the newest verison of
PowerShell (PS) which is able to run PS commands remotely. And it
seems most of the internals of Windows can be accessed through PS.
What ssh server would you recommend with for Windows, is there an
opensource one lighter than installing cygwin only for a ssh server ?
I should try this way to show customers how i can manage remotely
their Windows systems.

2011/3/12 Jeremy Monnet <jmo...@gmail.com>:

[Jeremy Monnet]

On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 6:16 PM, Bertrand Juglas <b...@juglas.name> wrote:
> But with the newest versions of Windows, comes the newest verison of
> PowerShell (PS) which is able to run PS commands remotely. And it
> seems most of the internals of Windows can be accessed through PS.
> What ssh server would you recommend with for Windows, is there an
> opensource one lighter than installing cygwin only for a ssh server ?
> I should try this way to show customers how i can manage remotely
> their Windows systems.

http://sshwindows.sourceforge.net/ for example, but it seems to be
abandonned, http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/install-SSH-Server-Windows-Server-2008.html
otherwise gives a list.
I don't know what that is worth, I am not working with windows ... but
I am interested in the feedback :-)

Jérémy

[Anthony Shortland]

We have plenty of experience with Cygwin/OpenSSH ... it's really the only game in town for Windows ssh ... plenty of relevant documentation on setting it up on the ControlTier wiki: http://doc36.controltier.org/wiki/Cygwin ... which is just as applicable to Rundeck ... no need to worry about a client software install, of course ...

I'm about to have a go at installing Rundeck on a Windows 2008 server ... anyone done that yet?

Anthony.

[Bertrand Juglas]

2011/3/12 Jeremy Monnet <jmo...@gmail.com>:

> http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/install-SSH-Server-Windows-Server-2008.html
> otherwise gives a list.

it remembered me i've also installed freesshd few years ago so i may
retry as a base for managing windows systems with rundeck :)
i will let you know about my experience.

[Seth Chisamore]

I was able to add some improved window's support to Chef's Knife by leveraging WinRM:

https://github.com/opscode/knife-windows

May be able to so something similar in Rundeck.

Seth

--
Opscode, Inc.
Seth Chisamore, Technical Evangelist
T: (404) 348-0505 E: schi...@opscode.com
Twitter, IRC, Github: schisamo

[Anthony Shortland]

One thing to make clear to anyone following this thread is that a server-level installation is not necessary on the Rundeck *server* since it includes a pure Java SSH implementation (http://www.jcraft.com/jsch/) ... as it stands what is required is an ssh installation on client systems.

Talk of alternate protocols on Windows is interesting, but even if Power Shell provides some means of remote command execution as an alternative to ssh it doesn't do so for all Windows variants and currently there isn't a way to cleanly integrate its use (or the use of other alternate protocols such at PsExec - which is more widely supported) with Rundeck so far as I can see.

Anthony.

[Seth Chisamore]

WinRM is slightly different than remote PowerShell and PsExec.  WinRM is Microsoft's implementation of WS-Management [0] which is an open SOAP-based protocol.  So really any platform that can handle XML/HTTP (read *nix) can invoke remote commands via WinRM.  WinRM is built into Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008+. It can also be easily installed in older version of Windows, including: Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista.  It also appears to be Microsoft's "blessed" approach to invoking remote commands on Windows machines.  This seems important because the die-hard Windows shops may be unwilling to install an SSH daemon on their boxes, although this would be my preferred approach. :)

Seth

--
Opscode, Inc.
Seth Chisamore, Technical Evangelist
T: (404) 348-0505 E: schi...@opscode.com
Twitter, IRC, Github: schisamo

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WS-Management

[Bertrand Juglas]

Thank you Seth for these details on WinRM. When WinRM support is
integrated into Chef's Knife and Chef's Knife support is integrated
into Rundeck, does it means Rundeck can manage Windows hosts using
WinRM through Chef ?

2011/3/13 Seth Chisamore <schi...@opscode.com>: