Tag: IaC

Connect-NsxtServer shows “Unable to connect to the remote server”

When you run Connect-NsxtServer in the PowerCLI, it may show “Unable to connect to the remote server“.

Because the error message is a little bit confusing with other login issues. It’s not easy to troubleshoot. The actual reason is the NSX-T uses a self-signed certificate, and the PowerCLI cannot accept the certificate automatically.

The fix is super easy. You need to set the PowerCLI to ignore the invalid certificate with the following command:

Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -Scope User -InvalidCertificateAction:Ignore -Confirm:$false

Move Terraform Providers to Other Folders

Create a new control file with the name .terraformrc or terraform.rc in your profile folder.

Add the following lines:

plugin_cache_dir   = "$HOME/.terraform.d/plugin-cache"

Create the folder .terraform.d/plugin-cache in your profile folder.

The providers will be downloaded to the cache folder when you run terraform init.

If you don’t want to create the control file in the profile folder. Alternative is to create an environment variable.

export TF_PLUGIN_CACHE_DIR="$HOME/.terraform.d/plugin-cache"

Setup Terraform and Ansible for Windows provisionon CentOS

black server racks on a room

Provisioning Windows machines with Terraform is easy. Configuring Windows machines with Ansible is also not complex. However, it’s a little bit challenging to combine them. The following steps are some ideas about handling a Windows machine from provisioning to post configuration without modifying the winrm configuration on the guest operating system.

  1. Install required repos for yum.
yum -y install https://repo.ius.io/ius-release-el7.rpm
yum -y install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
yum -y install https://packages.endpointdev.com/rhel/7/os/x86_64/endpoint-repo.x86_64.rpm
yum -y install epel-release
yum -y install yum-utils
yum-config-manager --add-repo https://rpm.releases.hashicorp.com/RHEL/hashicorp.repo
  1. Install Terraform.
sudo yum -y install terraform
  1. Install Ansible.
sudo yum -y install ansible
  1. Install Kerberos.
yum -y install gcc python-devel krb5-devel krb5-libs krb5-workstation
  1. Install pip.
sudo yum -y install python-pip

# You probably need the following packages if you are using VPN
pip install pysocks
  1. Install pywinrm[kerberos].
pip install pywinrm[kerberos]
  1. Configure /etc/krb5.conf.
    The following are the required lines. Please make sure to change the domain name to yours. And it’s case-sensitive.
[libdefaults]
 dns_lookup_realm = true
 dns_lookup_kdc = true
 forward = true
 forwardable = true
 default_realm = ZHENGWU.ORG


[realms]
 ZHENGWU.ORG = {
  kdc = DC.ZHENGWU.ORG
  admin_server = DC.ZHENGWU.ORG
 }

[domain_realm]
 .zhengwu.org = ZHENGWU.ORG
 zhengwu.org = ZHENGWU.ORG
  1. Create an Ansible inventory file.

[win] #Group name
dc.zhengwu.org #This is the target server list
 

[win:vars]
ansible_connection=winrm 

ansible_user=administrator #It's better a domain admin account.
ansible_password=P@ssw0rd #Change this password
ansible_port=5985
ansible_winrm_transport=kerberos
ansible_winrm_server_cert_validation=ignore
  1. Run Ansible win_ping test.
ansible <group in inventory file> -m win_ping -i <inventory file>