puppet-windowsfeature

Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Module Description - What the module does and why it is useful
3. Setup - The basics of getting started with windowsfeature
   • What windowsfeature affects
   • Setup requirements
4. Usage - Configuration options and additional functionality
5. Reference - An under-the-hood peek at what the module is doing and how
6. Limitations - OS compatibility, etc.
7. Development - Guide for contributing to the module

Overview

The windowsfeature module allows you to install/remove windows features.

Module Description

The windowsfeature module introduces a new windowsfeature type uses the ServerManager API that comes with Windows Server 2008 R2 onward to add/remove Windows features.

For a list of the windows features you can install, please visit this technet article

Setup

What windowsfeature affects

• Installs windows features (and optionally corresponding tools)

Setup Requirements

• windowsfeature makes use of Powershell so you will need to have at least version 2.0 installed in order to use this module.

Usage

To install a single windows feature such as .NET 3.5:

windowsfeature { 'NET-Framework-Core':
  ensure => present,
}

To install several windows features as part of a large application such IIS:

$iis_features = ['Web-Server','Web-WebServer','Web-Asp-Net45','Web-ISAPI-Ext','Web-ISAPI-Filter','NET-Framework-45-ASPNET','WAS-NET-Environment','Web-Http-Redirect','Web-Filtering','Web-Mgmt-Console','Web-Mgmt-Tools']

windowsfeature { $iis_features:
  ensure => present,
}

To install any associated management tools:

windowsfeature { 'Web-WebServer':
  ensure                 => present,
  installmanagementtools => true,
}

To install all subfeatures without having to list them all out:

windowsfeature { 'Web-WebServer':
  ensure             => present,
  installsubfeatures => true,
}

To install a feature and reboot if one is pending:

windowsfeature { 'RDS-RD-Server':
  ensure  => present,
}

reboot {'after_RDS_RD_Server':
  when  => pending,
  subscribe => Windowsfeature['RDS-RD-Server'],
}

DEPRECATION NOTICE: The restart parameter has been deprecated in favor of the puppetlabs reboot module ( https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-reboot ). This parameter will be removed in the next release.

Reference

Types

Parameters are optional unless otherwise noted.

windowsfeature

ensure

Specifies whether the feature should be present. Valid options: 'present', 'installed' and 'absent'.

Default: 'present'.

name

Required.

The name of the feature you want to manage.

installmanagementtools

Specifies that all applicable management tools of the roles, role services, or features specified by the Name parameter should be installed. Note: Although management tools are installed by default when you are installing features by using the UI, management tools are not installed by default when you install features by using the Install-WindowsFeature cmdlet; this parameter must be added to install management tools.

installsubfeatures

Specifies that all subordinate role services, and all subfeatures of parent roles, role services, or features specified by the Name parameter should be installed.

restart

Specifies that the target system is restarted automatically, if a restart is required by the installation process for the specified roles or features.

source

Specify the location of an installation source. The source must be from the exact same version of Windows for the reinstallation to work. Without this parameter, PowerShell will use Windows Update by default to look for an installation source

Upgrading from 1.0.1 Release

Previously, the windows features were managed by individual execs:

exec { "add-feature-${title}":
  command  => "Import-Module ServerManager; ${command} ${features} ${_installmanagementtools} ${_installsubfeatures} ${_installsource} -Restart:$${_restart}",
  onlyif   => "Import-Module ServerManager; if (@(Get-WindowsFeature ${features} | ?{\$_.Installed -match \'false\'}).count -eq 0) { exit 1 }",
  provider => powershell,
  timeout  => $timeout,
}

This lead to long execution times when managing a large amount of features, even after features were installed, as the Powershell would have to run the onlyif command for every check.

The new 2.0.0 release uses native types and providers, which speeds up the time as it can just compare the resources on the machine with the results from Get-WindowsFeature.

For example, enabling all the Windows features for a standard IIS setuo after features are installed (ie. an idempotent run):

1.0.0 release:

win-2012R2-std 01:29:30$ puppet apply --verbose --detailed-exitcodes C:\Windows\Temp\apply_manifest.pp.8276
  Info: Loading facts
  Notice: Compiled catalog for win-2012r2-std.home in environment production in 0.44 seconds
  Info: Applying configuration version '1464136176'
  Notice: Finished catalog run in 15.30 seconds

win-2012R2-std 01:29:30$ puppet apply --verbose --detailed-exitcodes C:\Windows\Temp\apply_manifest.pp.8276
  Info: Loading facts
  Notice: Compiled catalog for win-2012r2-std.home in environment production in 0.44 seconds
  Info: Applying configuration version '1464136176'
  Notice: Finished catalog run in 3.34 seconds

So that's a third of the original runs time! And this would only increase with larger amounts of features, as the more features to check, the longer it would take.

Another benefit is this module now has less dependancies on other modules, as it's all native to the module now.

Limitations

This module is tested on the following platforms:

• Windows 2008 R2
• Windows 2012
• Windows 2012 R2
• Windows 2016

It is tested with the OSS version of Puppet only.

Known issues

• Specifying installmanagementtools and/or installsubfeatures when a feature is already installed will not install said management tools or sub features.

Contributing

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for full details on contributing to this project.