product-demos/windows

Windows Demos

Table of Contents

• Windows Demos
  • Table of Contents
  • About These Demos
    • Known Issues
    • Jobs
    • Workflows
  • Suggested Usage
  • Connecting to Windows Hosts
    • Testing with RDP

About These Demos

This category of demos shows examples of Windows Server operations and management with Ansible Automation Platform. The list of demos can be found below. See the Suggested Usage section of this document for recommendations on how to best use these demos.

Known Issues

We are currently investigating an intermittent connectivity issue related to the credentials for Windows hosts. If encountered, re-provision your demo environment. You can track the issue and related work here.

Jobs

• WINDOWS / Install IIS - Install IIS feature with a configurable index.html
• WINDOWS / Patching - Apply Windows updates by category and create report
• WINDOWS / Chocolatey install multiple - Install multiple packages using Chocolatey and check versions
• WINDOWS / Chocolatey install specific - Install a single given package using Chocolatey
• WINDOWS / Arbitrary Powershell - Run given Powershell script (default: retrieve cat fact from API)
• WINDOWS / Powershell Script - Run a Powershell script stored in source control to query services
• WINDOWS / Powershell DSC configuring password requirements - Configure password complexity with Powershell desired state config
• WINDOWS / Create Active Directory Domain - Create a new AD Domain
• WINDOWS / Helpdesk new user portal - Create user in AD Domain
• WINDOWS / Join Active Directory Domain - Join computer to AD Domain

Workflows

• Setup Active Directory Domain - A workflow to create a domain controller with two domain-joined Windows hosts

Suggested Usage

Setup Active Directory Domain - One-click domain setup, infrastructure included.

WINDOWS / Create Active Directory Domain - This job can take some to complete. It is recommended to run ahead of time if you would like to demo creating a helpdesk user.

WINDOWS / Helpdesk new user portal - This job is dependant on the Create Active Directory Domain completing before users can be created.

WINDOWS / Join Active Directory Domain - This job is dependant on the Create Active Directory Domain completing before computers can be joined.

Connecting to Windows Hosts

The provided template for provisioning VMs in AWS supports a few blueprints, notably windows_core and windows_full. The windows blueprints both rely on the aws_windows_userdata script which configures a user with Administrator privileges. By default, the Demo Credential is used to inject a password for ec2-user.

⚠️ When using Ansible Product Demos on demo.redhat.com,
the image below demonstrates where you can locate the Demo Credential password:

Testing with RDP

In the AWS Console, you can follow the steps below to download an RDP configuration for your Windows host:

1. Navigate to the EC2 Dashboard
2. Navigate to Instances
3. Click on the desired Instance ID
4. Click the button to Connect
5. Select the RDP client tab
6. Click the button to Download remote desktop file
7. Use a local RDP client to open the file and connect
   Note: the configuration will default to using Administrator as the username, replace with ec2-user