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How to Join Windows Servers to your DC with Ansible

| October 10, 2022
• This role will simply join a new windows server to the domain
• You simply need to define the passed parameters in defaults/main.yml indicated below
• This role will ask you for the domain admin password at runtime so you will need to know it. Don’t need to worry about vaulting the admin AD password in the code
• This role assume your windows host is already configured to use winrm

How to use this role:

1.You must first download the git repository into your roles directory usually ansible/role/

.

2.Now you want edit the hosts.client file name file or create it if it doesn’t exist under your “ansible/inventory/dev:staging:prod” directory. This is a good way to separate environments with ansible, inside each environment you should have a hosts.file like indicated below.

Example file: hosts.dev, hosts.staging, hosts.prod

c.Put your server under the appropriate group inside the file and save
i.Testmachine1.nicktailor.coml ansible_host=192.168.1.101

Note: If there is no group simply list the server outside grouping, the –limit flag will pick it

up.

3.Now inside this directory you should see hosts & host_vars, group_vars

Descriptions:

d.Hosts. – is where you will list your servers under specific groups which tell the playbook (what the server is, if it the server should have a specific task run on it, and how to find it)
e.Host_vars – Inside this directory is where you list the server by name which is you will list under hosts. Inside these files you pass variable parameters to the specific roles when running your playbook. Without these the playbook cant do the tasks you want it to.
f.Group_vars – Are how a way to group variables for sets of servers and this keeps code cleaners and easier to manage.

Operational Use:

4.Move inside host_var
g.cd host_var
h.create a file called {{ servername }} and save it for us its testmachine1.nicktailor.com

.

5.Now inside this directory you should see hosts & host_vars, group_vars

Descriptions:

i.Hosts. – is where you will list your servers under specific groups which tell the playbook (what the server is, if it the server should have a specific task run on it, and how to find it)
j.Host_vars – Inside this directory is where you list the server by name which is you will list under hosts. Inside these files you pass variable parameters to the specific roles when running your playbook. Without these the playbook cant do the tasks you want it to.
k.Group_vars – Are how a way to group variables for sets of servers and this keeps code cleaners and easier to manage.

Operational Use:

6.Move inside host_var
l.cd host_var
m.create a file called {{ servername }} and save it for us its testmachine1.nicktailor.com
n.add the following parameters to your inventory file and save.

passed parameters: example: roles/add-server-to-dc/default/main.yml

dns_domain_name: ad.nicktailor.com

computer_name: testmachine1

domain_ou_path: “OU=Admin,DC=nicktailor,DC=local”

domain_admin_user: adminuser@nicktailor.com

state: domain

.

Running your playbook:

1.You must run your play book from inside parent directory always “ansible”
2.Now there is a playbook called joinservertodomain.yml in the ansible directory which simply calls the add-servers-to-dc role inside the roles directory.

Example: of ansible/joinservertodomain.yml

– hosts: all

  gather_facts: no

  vars_prompt:

  – name: domain_pass

    prompt: Enter Admin Domain Password

  roles:

    – role: add–servers-to–dc

.

Command:

ansible-playbook –i inventory/dev/hosts joinservertodomain.yml ––limit=’testmachine1.nicktailor.com‘

• -i : This flag tells ansibe-playbook command which hosts file to use, these are always defined by environment like hosts.dev or hosts.staging
• -u : this is the ssh_user you will be connecting to the servers with
• -Kkb : this tells ansible that you will be using sudo su – for the ssh_user when running all role/tasks
• -ask-beocme : is saying become root
• -limit=’server’ : this allows you to segement which server you want to run the playbook against.

.

Successful example run of the book:

.

[alfred@ansible.nicktailor.com ~]$ ansible-playbook –i inventory/hosts joinservertodomain.yml –limit=’testmachine1.nicktailor.com‘

ansible-playbook 2.9.27

  config file = /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

  configured module search path = [‘/home/alfred/.ansible/plugins/modules’, ‘/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules’]

  ansible python module location = /usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/ansible

  executable location = /usr/bin/ansible-playbook

  python version = 3.6.8 (default, Nov 10 2021, 06:50:23) [GCC 8.5.0 20210514 (Red Hat 8.5.0-3.0.2)]

.

PLAYBOOK: joinservertodomain.yml *****************************************************************************************************************************************************

Positional arguments: joinservertodomain.yml

verbosity: 4

connection: smart

timeout: 10

become_method: sudo

tags: (‘all’,)

inventory: (‘/home/alfred/inventory/hosts’,)

subset: testmachine1.nicktailor.com

forks: 5

1 plays in joinservertodomain.yml

Enter Domain Password:

.

PLAY [all] ***********************************************************************************************************************************************************************

META: ran handlers

.

TASK [addservertodc : Join windows host to Domain Controller] ********************************************************************************************************************

task path: /home/alfred/roles/addservertodc/tasks/main.yml:1

Using module file /usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/ansible/modules/windows/win_domain_membership.ps1

Pipelining is enabled.

<testmachine1.nicktailor.com> ESTABLISH WINRM CONNECTION FOR USER: ansibleuser on PORT 5986 TO testmachine1.nicktailor.com

EXEC (via pipeline wrapper)

changed: [testmachine1.nicktailor.com] => {

    “changed”: true,

    “reboot_required“: true

}

.

TASK [addservertodc : win_reboot] ************************************************************************************************************************************************

win_reboot: system successfully rebooted

changed: [testmachine1.nicktailor.com] => {

    “changed”: true,

    “elapsed”: 23,

    “rebooted”: true

}

META: ran handlers

META: ran handlers

.

PLAY RECAP ***********************************************************************************************************************************************************************

testmachine1.nicktailor.com       : ok=2    changed=2    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0   

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October 10, 2022 Active Directory, Ansible, windowsNo Comments »

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