Change Windows 'administrator' password upon first login of a new VM

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1

Hi - my team has an Ansible automation that deploys and configures a new Windows Server system in our vSphere-based lab environment. It uses govc to deploy an .ova created within our company that has a secure password for the ‘administrator’ account, and the ‘administrator’ account is set to force a password change on first login. I want to automate the password change in our Ansible workflow. After ova deployment, the network settings have not yet been applied.

I’ve tried using the vmware_vm_shell module with these values:

  • name: “Set new administrator account password”
    local_action:
    module: vmware_vm_shell
    hostname: “{{ management_vcenter_ip }}”
    username: “{{ management_vcenter_user }}”
    password: “{{ management_vcenter_password }}”
    validate_certs: False
    datacenter: “{{ datacenter }}”
    vm_id: “{{ vm_name }}”
    vm_username: “{{ vm_admin }}”
    vm_password: “{{ vm_password }}”
    vm_shell: “C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe”
    vm_shell_args: " -command Set-LocalUser -Name administrator -Password {{vm_new_password}}"
    vm_shell_cwd: “C:\Windows\Temp”

but am seeing this unhelpful response:

TASK [deploy-windowssql : Set new administrator account password] ***************************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [ldpdd192.hop.lab.emc.com → localhost]: FAILED! => {“changed”: false, “msg”: “A general system error occurred: vix error codes = (1, 0).\n”}

Am I using vmware_vm_shell or the Powershell Set-LocalUser command incorrectly? Or is there a better way to change the ‘administrator’ password on a VM that is running but is not yet network-accessible?

Thanks!

2

I’ve spent more hours on this, and I think a cleaner way to change the password of the administrator account is by using the command:

net user administrator ‘password’

but I’m having trouble with getting this command to work. I think the problem is with the ‘vm_shell’ value, as I’m not sure which shell to use.

Thoughts?

Thanks
tl

3

A colleague helped me with the knowledge that the customization ‘existing_vm’ key needed to be provide with a value of True, and the ‘state’ key needed a value of ‘present’. The module below does set the ‘administrator’ password when the account is set for ‘change password on first login’:

  • name: “Set a new administrator account password and power on the VM”
    community.vmware.vmware_guest:
    hostname: “{{ management_vcenter_ip }}”
    username: “{{ management_vcenter_user }}”
    password: “{{ management_vcenter_password }}”
    datacenter: “{{ datacenter }}”
    cluster: “{{ cluster }}”
    name: “{{ vm_name }}”
    state: present
    networks:
  • name: “{{ vm_network }}”
    validate_certs: False
    wait_for_customization: true
    wait_for_ip_address: true
    customization:
    password: “{{ vm_password }}”
    existing_vm: True
    delegate_to: localhost