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Comment by WickyNilliams | Hacker News Reader

Is there a comparable tool for Windows?

Powershell works great for executing commands on arbitrary servers (which sounds like the basis of Salt), but it'd be great to declaratively say "I want the server in this state" like the config management side of salt. I assume there is a tool built atop of Powershell like this somewhere?

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Puppet and Chef both support Windows.

http://projects.puppetlabs.com/projects/1/wiki/Puppet_Window...

http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Fast+Start+Guide+for+Wi...

As mentioned, this can be done with Chef, Puppet, and Salt, but be careful about how you go about it. It is important to recognize when it is best to leverage AD for your Windows configs.

It is easy to fall down the rabbit hole of trying to implement things in a CM tool/Powershell combo that could be done in AD far easier.

Genuine question: Why would you have Windows servers joined in an AD domain? Or are you talking about pushing changes to workstations?

Because the services you provide depend on a domain for authentication and configuration like Exchange, Citrix, IIS, Sharepoint, SCCM, and every other Microsoft server product.

I am dying for the chef/puppet/salt/ansible/cfengine recipe that will let me fully configure this stuff, including the domain memberships.

Salt can configure Windows machines, but you need to have the master running on *nix iirc.

OK thanks for the heads up. I'll check it out, but I worry people will resist bringing in a *nix machine. It's unfamiliar and therefore must be feared!

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