Ansible win_get_url Module: Download Files on Windows Hosts (Guide) — Video Tutorial

How to download a file in Windows-like systems with Ansible? I'm going to show you a live Playbook and some simple Ansible code. I'm Luca Berton and welcome to today's episode of Ansible Pilot. Ansible download a file in Windows-like systems - ansible.windows.win_get_url - Downloads file from HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP to node Let's talk about the Ansible module `win_get_url`. The full name is `ansible.windows.win_get_url`, which means that is part of the collection of modules of Ansible to interact with Windows nodes. It downloads files from HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP to node For Linux targets, use the `ansible.builtin.get_url` Ansible module instead. Parameters - `url` string - URL - `dest` string - path - `force` string - no/yes - `checksum_algorithm`, `checksum`, `checksum_url` string - checksum_algorithm, checksum, checksum_url - `force_basic_auth`/`url_username`/`url_password`/`use_gssapi` - HTTP basic auth/GSSAPI-Kerberos - `headers` dictionary - custom HTTP headers - `http_agent` string - "`ansible-httpget`" - `proxy_url`, `proxy_username`, `proxy_password`, `proxy_use_default_credential` - proxy The parameters of the `win_get_url` module. The two required parameters are `url` and `dest`. The `url` parameter specifies the URL of the resource you're going to download. The `dest` parameter specifies the filesystem path where the resource is going to be saved on the target node. Let's deep dive into the "force" parameter. If "dest" is a file, Ansible is going to download every time the file. If "dest" is a directory the default behavior is not to replace a file, until you toggle to `yes` the force parameter. The parameter "checksum" is very useful to validate the consistency of the downloaded file. You could specify the algorithm under `checksum_algorithm`, default SHA1, and directly the checksum or the checksum URL `checksum_url`. Another interesting parameter is "headers" which allows you to specify some custom HTTP headers. Ansible presents himself as "ansible-httpget" in the web server logs, but you cust customize it in the "http_agent" parameter. There are also additional parameters for the X509 authentication client certificate (.pfx). Enterprise users could also specify the `proxy` settings parameters. Links - [win_get_url module](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/windows/win_get_url_module.html) ## Playbook How to download a file in Windows-like systems with Ansible Playbook. code ```yaml --- - name: win_get_url module Playbook hosts: all become: false vars: myurl: "https://releases.ansible.com/ansible/ansible-2.9.25.tar.gz" mycrc: "https://releases.ansible.com/ansible/ansible-2.9.25.tar.gz.sha" mycrc_algorithm: "sha256" mydest: 'C:\Users\vagrant\Desktop\ansible-2.9.25.tar.gz' tasks: - name: download file ansible.windows.win_get_url: url: "{{ myurl }}" dest: "{{ mydest }}" checksum_algorithm: "{{ mycrc_algorithm }}" checksum_url: "{{ mycrc }