# Authentication to Windows servers

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/authentication-to-windows-servers/36546>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** windows\
**Created:** [April 20, 2022, 8:32pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/authentication-to-windows-servers/36546 "2022-04-20T20:32:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![RROK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecc23a/32.png) [@RROK](https://forum.ansible.com/u/RROK)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2022, 8:32pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/authentication-to-windows-servers/36546/1 "2022-04-20T20:32:47Z")

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I am new to ansible and have a large number of computers to manage - my question is around authentication to computers

I understand I need a local account on all machines which I can create at build time

I would like to rotate the passwords for these accounts to keep them secure

I want the lowest risk way of accessing them

Is certificate based auth with a mapping to a cert the way to go or is the overhead too much - if I do this on an account do I need to manage the password in anyway?