pywinrm is a Python client for the Windows Remote Management (WinRM) service. It allows you to invoke commands on target Windows machines from any machine that can run Python.
WinRM allows you to perform various management tasks remotely. These include, but are not limited to: running batch scripts, powershell scripts, and fetching WMI variables.
Used by Ansible for Windows support.
For more information on WinRM, please visit Microsoft's WinRM site.
$ pip install pywinrm
# for Debian/Ubuntu/etc:
$ sudo apt-get install gcc python3-dev libkrb5-dev
$ pip install pywinrm[kerberos]
# for RHEL/CentOS/etc:
$ sudo dnf install gcc krb5-devel krb5-workstation python3-devel
$ pip install pywinrm[kerberos]
$ pip install pywinrm[credssp]
import winrm
s = winrm.Session('windows-host.example.com', auth=('john.smith', 'secret'))
r = s.run_cmd('ipconfig', ['/all'])
>>> r.status_code
0
>>> r.std_out
Windows IP Configuration
Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : WINDOWS-HOST
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
...
>>> r.std_err
NOTE: pywinrm will try and guess the correct endpoint url from the following formats:
import winrm
ps_script = """$strComputer = $Host
Clear
$RAM = WmiObject Win32_ComputerSystem
$MB = 1048576
"Installed Memory: " + [int]($RAM.TotalPhysicalMemory /$MB) + " MB" """
s = winrm.Session('windows-host.example.com', auth=('john.smith', 'secret'))
r = s.run_ps(ps_script)
>>> r.status_code
0
>>> r.std_out
Installed Memory: 3840 MB
>>> r.std_err
Powershell scripts will be base64 UTF16 little-endian encoded prior to sending to the Windows host. Error messages are converted from the Powershell CLIXML format to a human readable format as a convenience.
from winrm.protocol import Protocol
p = Protocol(
endpoint='https://windows-host:5986/wsman',
transport='ntlm',
username=r'somedomain\someuser',
password='secret',
server_cert_validation='ignore')
shell_id = p.open_shell()
command_id = p.run_command(shell_id, 'ipconfig', ['/all'])
std_out, std_err, status_code = p.get_command_output(shell_id, command_id)
p.cleanup_command(shell_id, command_id)
p.close_shell(shell_id)
pywinrm supports various transport methods in order to authenticate with the WinRM server. The options that are supported in the transport parameter are;
basic: Basic auth only works for local Windows accounts not domain accounts. Credentials are base64 encoded when sending to the server.plaintext: Same as basic auth.certificate: Authentication is done through a certificate that is mapped to a local Windows account on the server.ssl: When used in conjunction with cert_pem and cert_key_pem it will use a certificate as above. If not will revert to basic auth over HTTPS.kerberos: Will use Kerberos authentication for domain accounts which only works when the client is in the same domain as the server and the required dependencies are installed. Currently a Kerberos ticket needs to be initialized outside of pywinrm using the kinit command.ntlm: Will use NTLM authentication for both domain and local accounts.credssp: Will use CredSSP authentication for both domain and local accounts. Allows double hop authentication. This only works over a HTTPS endpoint and not HTTP.By default, WinRM will not accept unencrypted communication with a client. There are two ways to enable encrypted communication with pywinrm:
Using an HTTPS endpoint is recommended, as it will encrypt all the data sent to the server (including all headers), works securely with all auth types, and can properly verify remote host identity (when used with certificates signed by a verifiable certificate authority).
The second option is to use NTLM, Kerberos, or CredSSP, and set the message_encryption
arg to protocol to auto (the default value) or always. This will use the authentication GSS-API
Wrap and Unwrap methods to encrypt the message contents sent to
the server. This form of encryption is independent of the transport layer, and the strength of the encryption
used varies with the underlying authentication type selected (NTLM generally being the weakest and CredSSP the
strongest).
To configure message encryption you can use the message_encryption argument
when initialising protocol. This option has 3 values that can be set as shown
below.
auto: Default, Will only use message encryption if it is available for the auth method and HTTPS isn't used.never: Will never use message encryption even when not over HTTPS.always: Will always use message encryption even when running over HTTPS (fails if encryption support is unavailable on the selected auth method).If you set the value to always and the transport opt doesn't support message
encryption (e.g., basic auth or an old version of pykerberos without message
encryption support is installed), pywinrm will throw an exception.
If you do not use an HTTPS endpoint or message encryption, a default-configured WinRM server will automatically reject requests from pywinrm. Server settings can be modified allow unencrypted messages and credentials, but this is highly insecure and should only be used for diagnostic purposes. To allow unencrypted communications, run the following on the WinRM server (cmd and powershell versions provided):
# from cmd
winrm set winrm/config/service @{AllowUnencrypted="true"}
# or from powershell
Set-Item -Path "WSMan:\localhost\Service\AllowUnencrypted" -Value $true
Again, this should not be used in production environments, as your credentials and WinRM messages can be trivially recovered.
Enable WinRM over HTTP for test usage (includes firewall rules):
winrm quickconfig
Enable WinRM basic authentication. For domain users, it is necessary to use NTLM, Kerberos, or CredSSP authentication (Kerberos and NTLM authentication are enabled by default, CredSSP is not).
# from cmd:
winrm set winrm/config/service/auth @{Basic="true"}
Enable WinRM CredSSP authentication. This allows double hop support so you can authenticate with a network service when running command son the remote host. This command is run in Powershell.
Enable-WSManCredSSP -Role Server -Force
Set-Item -Path "WSMan:\localhost\Service\Auth\CredSSP" -Value $true
Want to help - send a pull request. I will accept good pull requests for sure.
FAQs
Python library for Windows Remote Management
We found that pywinrm demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 4 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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