Using SSH for NCPA Installation on Windows Servers

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golfbottom
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2025 3:45 am

Using SSH for NCPA Installation on Windows Servers

Post by golfbottom »

I’m trying to deploy NCPA to my Microsoft Windows servers and noticed that the installation process uses SSH. Is this intentional, or could it be a mistake?

Do I need to install OpenSSH on my Windows servers before proceeding?
In my environment, we already use Ansible with WinRM for Windows deployments.

Is it possible to modify the Nagios deployment to use WinRM instead of SSH?
I see that the install_agent_win.yml file includes the line:
ansible_connection: ssh
Would appreciate clarification or guidance on the best approach.
cdietsch
Posts: 55
Joined: Wed Aug 06, 2025 9:12 am

Re: Using SSH for NCPA Installation on Windows Servers

Post by cdietsch »

Hi golfbottom,

You should not need to install OpenSSH on Windows 10 and later and Windows Server 2019 and later systems as OpenSSH is built into those versions of Windows. However you may need to enable it in the optional features.

Currently only SSH deployment is supported.

There is a similar post here viewtopic.php?t=76494 where the user AngeloMileto offers some advice on using Powershell to initiate a remote deployment.
Cheers,
- Cole
rocky07
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Oct 17, 2025 11:05 pm

Re: Using SSH for NCPA Installation on Windows Servers

Post by rocky07 »

Yes, the NCPA deployment script using ansible_connection: ssh is intentional, as it’s designed for Linux-style SSH connections by default. However, Windows servers typically use WinRM, not SSH, for Ansible communication. You don’t need to install OpenSSH unless you specifically want to manage Windows hosts via SSH. To align with your existing setup, you can modify the install_agent_win.yml file to use ansible_connection: winrm, ensuring Ansible communicates with Windows servers through WinRM instead of SSH.
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