Sample ansible custom fact on Windows - ansible

Question

Does anyone have a sample of a working powershell script to create a custom fact on Windows for Ansible ? I tried something similar on Linux and it works fine but on Windows I cannot get it to work. It does not help that I cannot find any example on the internet either !
I have tried a number of variations of the following powershell script but am unable to get it to work. To be clear, I am able to display the actual custom fact but am unable to access it using say ansible_facts.some_var
$myjson = #"
{
"some_var": "some_value"
}
"#
Write-Output $myjson
Variations attempted
Tried converting to json Write-Output $myjson | ConvertToJson
Added/removed quotes

Answer 1

I've wrestled with windows facts in the past. This is what I do:
This is a test facts file you need to place on your Windows server. I use ansible to put it in place:
$InstanceType = $(Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/instance-type)
$AvailZone = $(Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/placement/availability-zone)
$AMI_ID = $(Invoke-RestMethod -uri http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/ami-id)
#{
local = #{
local_facts = #{
cloud = 'AWS'
instance_type = $InstanceType
avail_zone = $AvailZone
ami_id = $AMI_ID
region = 'eu-west-1'
environment = 'DIT'
Support_Team = 'Win_Team'
Callout = '6-8'
}
}
}
You don't need to nest the local & local_facts, that's just my personal preference.
At the top of the file, I've added a few variables to grab the AWS metadata but you can change these to something else.
I put my file in C:\TEMP\facts
Then run ansible:
ansible win -m setup -a fact_path=C:/TEMP/facts
and you should get out something like this:
"ansible_local": {
"local": {
"local_facts": {
"Callout": "6-8",
"Support_Team": "Win_Team",
"ami_id": "ami-07d8c98607d0b1326",
"avail_zone": "eu-west-1c",
"cloud": "AWS",
"environment": "DIT",
"instance_type": "t2.micro",
"region": "eu-west-1"
}
}
},
if you put the JSON into a file, you should be able to query it with a command like this:
cat file1 | jq '.[] .ansible_facts.ansible_local.local.local_facts'
{
"ami_id": "ami-0c95efaa8fa6e2424",
"avail_zone": "eu-west-1c",
"region": "eu-west-1",
"Callout": "6-8",
"environment": "DIT",
"instance_type": "t2.micro",
"Support_Team": "Win_Team",
"cloud": "AWS"
}

Answer 2

it is a late answer, but it works for me:
i use the following powershell-script with the name installed_software.ps1 to get the installed software:
# get installed software
Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product | select Name, Version
put the powershell script in the path c:\temp\facts.
I call it with:
ansible win -m setup -a 'fact_path=C:/TEMP/facts gather_timeout=20 gather_subset=!hardware,!network,!ohai,!facter'
read the documentation here: https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/setup_module.html
the most important thing is: do not output json. The setup-module in windows expect raw hashtables, arrays, or other primitive objects.
My output within the json looks like:
...
"ansible_installed_software": [
{
"Name": "Office 16 Click-to-Run Extensibility Component",
"Version": "16.0.15427.20178"
},
{
"Name": "Office 16 Click-to-Run Localization Component",
"Version": "16.0.14131.20278"
},
...