Windows server management with Ansible

Using Ansible to manage System Center Service Manager tickets.
By Kostas Koutsogiannopoulos

In the automation project you just implement for a large scale company you have to include their ticket management system.

The workflow could be somenting like this:

Capture some information from the ticket
Assign the ticket to implementor
Run your operation succesfully
Close the ticket

Capture the ticket

Our client is using System Center Service Manager for change management. To control this with ansible we need a windows system running powershell 3+, with "smlets" installed. We also need to follow the instructions to connect and control windows machines from our ansible-linux control server.

After that we can run powershell scripts that do our jobs, for now, to display ticket information:

ticketcapture.ps1

#!powershell
# Witten by thundercost

# WANT_JSON
# POWERSHELL_COMMON

# Manual Activity ID
$MA = $args[0]

# Create authentication token
$username = $args[1]
$password = $args[2]
$secstr = New-Object -TypeName System.Security.SecureString
$password.ToCharArray() | ForEach-Object {$secstr.AppendChar($_)}
$cred = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist $username, $secstr

# Import powershell modules
Import-Module 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\Service Manager\Powershell\System.Center.Service.Manager.psd1'
Import-Module -Name smlets

# Make the connection
New-SCManagementGroupConnection -ComputerName "SCSM" -Credential $cred

# Get the ticket instance
Get-SCSMClassInstance -Name "$MA"

# Romove powershell modules
Remove-Module smlets -Force

Assign to me

Now that we know what we must do about that ticket, we can assign the ticket to implementor.

Here is the powershell script:

assign2me.ps1

#!powershell
# Witten by thundercost

# WANT_JSON
# POWERSHELL_COMMON

# Manual Activity ID
$MA = $args[0]

# Create authentication token
$username = $args[1]
$password = $args[2]
$secstr = New-Object -TypeName System.Security.SecureString
$password.ToCharArray() | ForEach-Object {$secstr.AppendChar($_)}
$cred = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist $username, $secstr

# Import powershell modules
Import-Module 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\Service Manager\Powershell\System.Center.Service.Manager.psd1'
Import-Module -Name smlets

# Make the connection
New-SCManagementGroupConnection -ComputerName "SCSM" -Credential $cred

# Username of Implementer 
$parts = $username.split("@")
$Implementer = $parts[0]

# Get Manual Activity Class 
$MAclass = Get-SCSMClass -Name  System.WorkItem.Activity.ManualActivity

# Get Manual Activity by ID 
$MAObject = Get-SCSMObject -Class $MAclass -Credential $cred -Filter "ID -eq $MA"

# Get AD User Class 
$UserClass = Get-SCSMClass -Name Microsoft.AD.User

# Get User by displayname 
$User = Get-SCSMObject -Class $UserClass -Credential $cred -Filter "UserName -eq $Implementer"

# Get Relationship Manual Activity - Implementer 
$ImplementerRelationship = Get-SCSMRelationshipClass -Credential $cred -Name System.WorkItemAssignedToUser$

# Create a new Relationship Object Manual Activity - User (Implementer) 
New-SCSMRelationshipObject -RelationShip $ImplementerRelationship -Credential $cred -Source $MAObject -Target $User -Bulk

# Romove powershell modules
Remove-Module smlets -Force

Close the ticket

After ticket successfully assigned to a person, its time to do the real job using ansible. or/and any manual activity.

We only need to close the ticket at the end with this example powershell:

ticketclose.ps1

#!powershell
# Written by thundercost

# WANT_JSON
# POWERSHELL_COMMON

# Manual Activity ID
$MA = $args[0]

# Create authentication token
$username = $args[1]
$password = $args[2]
$secstr = New-Object -TypeName System.Security.SecureString
$password.ToCharArray() | ForEach-Object {$secstr.AppendChar($_)}
$cred = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist $username, $secstr

Import-Module 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\Service Manager\Powershell\System.Center.Service.Manager.psd1'
Import-Module -Name smlets
New-SCManagementGroupConnection -ComputerName "SCSM-SRV" -Credential $cred

#Username of Implementer 
#$parts = $username.split("@")
#$Implementer = $parts[0]

(get-scsmclass -name "System.WorkItem.activity.ManualActivity" | get-scsmclassinstance)  | where {$_.ID -eq $MA} | %{ $_.Status = "ActivityStatusEnum.Completed" ; $_ } | update-scsmclassinstance

Remove-Module smlets -Force

The example playbook

The playbook below asks for:

Ticket number
Implementor's user name
Implementor's password

...and depending on the value of the variable "state", runs the corresponding task:

ticket_manage.yml

- hosts: my_windows_pc
  vars:
#    - state: assigned
#    - state: closed
    - state: captured
  vars_prompt:
    - name: "ticket_no"
      prompt: "Enter ticket number"
      private: no
    - name: "scsm_user"
      prompt: "Enter SCSM username"
      private: no
    - name: "scsm_password"
      prompt: "Enter SCSM password"
      private: yes
  tasks:
    - script: /opt/ansible/assign2me.ps1  @DOMAIN.COM 
      when: state == "assigned"
    - script: /opt/ansible/ticketclose.ps1  @DOMAIN.COM 
      when: state == "closed"
    - script: /opt/ansible/ticketcapture.ps1  DOMAIN.COM 
      when: state == "captured"
      register: ticket_body
    - local_action: copy content= dest=/opt/ansible/ticket_info.txt
      when: state == "captured"