# Windows: Do not re-use ansible\_ssh\_user (etc) variable names for WinRM connections

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/windows-do-not-re-use-ansible-ssh-user-etc-variable-names-for-winrm-connections/18082>\
**Category:** Ansible Developer\
**Tags:** windows\
**Created:** [April 24, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/windows-do-not-re-use-ansible-ssh-user-etc-variable-names-for-winrm-connections/18082 "2015-04-24T17:23:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lars\_Sommer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/aca169/32.png) [@Lars\_Sommer](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Lars_Sommer)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/windows-do-not-re-use-ansible-ssh-user-etc-variable-names-for-winrm-connections/18082/1 "2015-04-24T17:23:04Z")

</div>

Hello,

I am feeling some pain with Windows WinRM connections re-using a variable name that’s A.) inaccurate and B.) shared with SSH connections for linux.

Reference docs: [http://docs.ansible.com/intro\_windows.html](http://docs.ansible.com/intro_windows.html)

Re-using this variable name for Windows connections means that you have to have a group\_vars entry for Windows and it has to be placed (nested) within your inventory in such a way that it won’t get stomped by the (appropriately named) ansible\_ssh\_user/password variables.

The docs make this seem like a non-issue but in a logical inventory design this becomes cumbersome:

(Example inventory)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Trond\_Hindenes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/96bed5/32.png) [@Trond\_Hindenes](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Trond_Hindenes)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2015, 12:38pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/windows-do-not-re-use-ansible-ssh-user-etc-variable-names-for-winrm-connections/18082/2 "2015-05-08T12:38:17Z")

</div>

Good points, and I couldn’t agree more. The vars should reflect that they’r winrm and not ssh connections. Anyone care to PR this?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Brian\_Coca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@Brian\_Coca](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Coca)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2015, 1:03pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/windows-do-not-re-use-ansible-ssh-user-etc-variable-names-for-winrm-connections/18082/3 "2015-05-08T13:03:33Z")

</div>

Actually I was thinking of a more general set of variables:

ansible\_conn\_user  
ansible\_conn\_pass  
ansible\_conn\_port  
ansible\_conn\_key (this also works for client certs)  
ansible\_conn\_host  
ansible\_conn\_proxy  
ansible\_connection

Which still would still require 'per connection type' groups