Connect securely to Windows hosts
Select a connection protocol and configure authentication for your environment.
Selecting a transport protocol directly impacts execution speed, security posture, and network footprint. Ansible Automation Platform supports three connectivity models for Windows.
Architectural recommendations
- Adopt PSRP as the Enterprise Standard: For general infrastructure configuration, patching, and compliance enforcement, PSRP offers optimal execution velocity, native Active Directory integration, and minimal CPU overhead.
- Use OpenSSH for Specific Edge Cases: Deploy OpenSSH only if corporate firewalls strictly limit cross-zone communication to Port 22, if proxy infrastructure requires SSH brokering, or if workloads demand frequent, ultra-large file transfers (e.g., database binaries or ISOs). This requires Windows Server 2022+ and ansible-core 2.18+.
- Deprecate Legacy WinRM: Update production inventories from ansible_connection: winrm to
ansible_connection: psrp. This shift lowers CPU use on managed endpoints and shortens playbook execution windows.
Protocol comparison
| Feature | Legacy WinRM | PSRP (recommended) | OpenSSH for Windows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connection plugin | winrm |
psrp |
ssh |
| Network port |
5985 (HTTP) 5986 (HTTPS) |
5985 (HTTP) 5986 (HTTPS) |
22 (TCP |
| Execution mechanism | Spawns a newpowershell.exe process per task. Heavy CPU load |
Uses persistent Runspace Pools. Executes tasks on internal threads. | Spawns a basic shell; invokes a new interpreter process per task. |
| Task execution speed | Slow | Fastest (~20-25% faster than WinRM in typical workloads.) | Moderate |
| File transfer speed | Slow | Moderate | Fastest (Native SFTP/SCP |
| Active directory auth | Excellent (Kerberos) | Excellent (Kerberos) | Excellent (Kerberos via GSSAPI) |
| Double-hop delegation | Supported (CredSSP / Kerberos) | Supported (CredSSP / Kerberos) | GSSAPI / Kerberos Delegation or plaintext passwords; unsupported when using SSH Key-Pairs. |
| Security profiles | Basic, NTLM, Kerberos, Certs | Basic, NTLM, Kerberos, Certs | SSH Key-pairs, Password, GSSAPI |
| FIPS 140 compliance | Complex (Requires Kerberos/HTTPS) | Complex (Requires Kerberos/HTTPS) | Native |
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