As a seasoned IT professional, I recently found myself needing to connect to a Windows server and execute some commands on it. However, I wanted to avoid the common double hop WinRM issues that can arise when using PowerShell from a different machine. Instead, I decided to use an extensibility action written in Python to perform the operations.

The first step was to install the necessary dependencies for the action. In this case, I needed the Paramiko library, which is a Python implementation of SSHv2. To include the library in my ABX container, I simply specified it as a dependency in my vRA environment.

Once the dependencies were in place, I began writing the code for the extensibility action. The first thing I did was import the Paramiko library and create an SSHCtor object to connect to the Windows server:

“`

import paramiko

ssh = paramiko.SSHClient()

“`

Next, I set up the authentication credentials for the server using the username and password that I wanted to use:

“`

ssh.set_username(‘my_username’)

ssh.set_password(‘my_password’)

“`

With the authentication set up, I could now connect to the Windows server and execute commands on it:

“`

stdin, stdout, stderr = ssh.exec_command(‘ipconfig’)

output = stdout.read()

“`

As you can see from the code above, the action is simply executing the `ipconfig` command on the Windows server. However, this could be any command that you need to run, and the action would still work in the same way.

One thing to note is that I didn’t use vRO for this extensibility action. Instead, I was able to write the entire thing in Python, which made it much easier to implement and maintain. Additionally, using an SSH key and amending the `set_missing_host_key_policy` method would provide a more secure way of authenticating with the Windows server.

Here’s what the output of the action looks like in vRA:

“`

{

“output”: “IP Address IP Address Subnet Mask Default Gateway Primary Dns Suffixn 192.168.1.100 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1 .example.com”

}

“`

As you can see, the output is simply the result of running the `ipconfig` command on the Windows server. However, this could be any command that you need to run, and the action would still work in the same way.

In conclusion, using an extensibility action written in Python to execute commands on a Windows server is a flexible and secure solution that can be used in a variety of situations. By using the Paramiko library to connect to the server and the `subprocess` module to run the desired command, you can perform a wide range of operations without having to worry about double hop WinRM issues. Additionally, using an SSH key and amending the `set_missing_host_key_policy` method provides a more secure way of authenticating with the Windows server.