knife winrm

Knife winrm Overview

Use the knife winrm subcommand to invoke commands over WinRM (in parallel) on a subset of nodes within an organization, based on the results of a search query made to the Chef Infra Server.

Requirements

This subcommand requires WinRM to be installed, and then configured correctly, including ensuring the correct ports are open. For more information, see Microsoft’s documentation on Windows Remote Management.

Use the quick configuration option in WinRM to allow outside connections and the entire network path from knife (and the workstation). Run the following on the Windows target:

C:\> winrm quickconfig -q

Often commands can take longer than the default MaxTimeoutms WinRM configuration setting. Increase this value to 1800000 (30 minutes).

To update this setting, run the following command on the Windows target:

C:\> winrm set winrm/config '@{MaxTimeoutms="1800000"}'

Ensure that the Windows Firewall is configured to allow WinRM connections between the workstation and the Chef Infra Server. For example:

C:\> netsh advfirewall firewall set rule name="Windows Remote Management (HTTP-In)" profile=public protocol=tcp localport=5985 remoteip=localsubnet new remoteip=any

Negotiate, NTLM

When knife is executed from a Windows system, it is no longer necessary to make additional configuration of the WinRM listener on the target node to enable successful authentication from the workstation. It is sufficient to have a WinRM listener on the remote node configured to use the default configuration for winrm quickconfig. This is because knife winrm supports the Windows negotiate protocol, including NTLM authentication, which matches the authentication requirements for the default configuration of the WinRM listener.

For example:

knife winrm web1.cloudapp.net 'dir' -x 'proddomain\webuser' -P 'password'

and:

knife winrm db1.cloudapp.net 'dir' -x '.\localadmin' -P 'password'

Domain Authentication

The knife winrm subcommand supports Windows domain authentication. This requires:

• An SSL certificate on the target node
• The certificate details can be viewed and its thumbprint hex values copied

To create the listener over HTTPS, run the following command on the Windows target:

C:\> winrm create winrm/config/Listener?Address=IP:<ip_address>+Transport=HTTPS @{Hostname="<fqdn>";CertificateThumbprint="<hexidecimal_thumbprint_value>"}

where the CertificateThumbprint is the thumbprint hex value copied from the certificate details. (The hex value may require that spaces be removed before passing them to the node using the knife winrm subcommand.) WinRM 2.0 uses port 5985 for HTTP and port 5986 for HTTPS traffic, by default.

To validate communication with the Windows system using domain authentication run:

knife winrm 'node1.domain.com' 'dir' -m -x domain\\administrator -P 'super_secret_password' -p 5986

winrm

Use the winrm argument to create a connection to one or more remote machines. As each connection is created, a password must be provided. This argument uses the same syntax as the search subcommand.

WinRM requires that a target node be accessible using the ports configured to support access using HTTP or HTTPS.

Syntax

This argument has the following syntax:

knife winrm SEARCH_QUERY SSH_COMMAND (options)

Options

This argument has the following options:

-a ATTR, --attribute ATTR

The attribute used when opening a connection. The default attribute is the FQDN of the host. Other possible values include a public IP address, a private IP address, or a hostname.

-C NUM, --concurrency NUM

Changed in knife-windows 1.9.0. The number of allowed concurrent connections. Defaults to 1.

-f CA_TRUST_FILE, --ca-trust-file CA_TRUST_FILE

Optional. The certificate authority (CA) trust file used for SSL transport.

-p PORT, --winrm-port PORT

The WinRM port. The TCP port on the remote system to which knife windows commands that are made using WinRM are sent. Default: 5986 when --winrm-transport is set to ssl, otherwise 5985.

-P PASSWORD, --winrm-password PASSWORD

The WinRM password.

-R KERBEROS_REALM, --kerberos-realm KERBEROS_REALM

Optional. The administrative domain to which a user belongs.

--returns CODES

A comma-delimited list of return codes that indicate the success or failure of the command that was run remotely.

-S KERBEROS_SERVICE, --kerberos-service KERBEROS_SERVICE

Optional. The service principal used during Kerberos-based authentication.

SEARCH_QUERY

The search query used to return a list of servers to be accessed using SSH and the specified SSH_COMMAND. This option uses the same syntax as the search subcommand.

SSH_COMMAND

The command to be run against the results of a search query.

--session-timeout MINUTES

The amount of time (in minutes) for the maximum length of a WinRM session.

--ssl-peer-fingerprint FINGERPRINT

SSL Cert Fingerprint to bypass normal cert chain checks

-t TRANSPORT, --winrm-transport TRANSPORT

The WinRM transport type. Possible values: ssl or plaintext.

-T, --keytab-file KEYTAB_FILE

The keytab file that contains the encryption key required by Kerberos-based authentication.

--winrm-authentication-protocol PROTOCOL

The authentication protocol to be used during WinRM communication. Possible values: basic, kerberos or negotiate. Default value: negotiate.

--winrm-codepage Codepage

The codepage to use for the WinRM Command Shell

--winrm-shell SHELL

The WinRM shell type. Valid choices are cmd, powershell or elevated. Default value: cmd. The elevated shell is similar to the powershell option, but runs the powershell command from a scheduled task.

--winrm-ssl-verify-mode MODE

The peer verification mode that is used during WinRM communication. Possible values: verify_none or verify_peer. Default value: verify_peer.

-x USERNAME, --winrm-user USERNAME

The WinRM user name.

Examples

Find Uptime for Web Servers

To find the uptime of all web servers, enter:

knife winrm "role:web" "net stats srv" -x Administrator -P password

Force a Chef Infra Client run

To force a Chef Infra Client run:

knife winrm 'ec2-50-xx-xx-124.amazonaws.com' 'chef-client -c c:/chef/client.rb' -m -x admin -P 'password'
ec2-50-xx-xx-124.amazonaws.com [date] INFO: Starting Chef Run (Version 0.9.12)
ec2-50-xx-xx-124.amazonaws.com [date] WARN: Node ip-0A502FFB has an empty run list.
ec2-50-xx-xx-124.amazonaws.com [date] INFO: Chef Run complete in 4.383966 seconds
ec2-50-xx-xx-124.amazonaws.com [date] INFO: cleaning the checksum cache
ec2-50-xx-xx-124.amazonaws.com [date] INFO: Running report handlers
ec2-50-xx-xx-124.amazonaws.com [date] INFO: Report handlers complete

Where in the examples above, [date] represents the date and time the long entry was created. For example: [Fri, 04 Mar 2011 22:00:53 +0000].