Remy

Remy (like the rat Chef) is a lightweight YAML-based Windows server configuration tool, written in C#. Its sole purpose is to provision a Windows Server 2012 upwards, running on the server itself.

It's heavily inspired by Travis and Appveyor YML configuration files, and design goal is to be as simple to use as possible.

Its not a replacement nor trying to compete with: Chef, Ansible, Puppet or Salt. It can of course be used with those tools although its main purpose is to run common setup tasks on Windows, and Windows only.

Getting started

Full examples are available with the help command:

.\remy.exe help
.\remy.exe /? ... and other variations

All tasks are defined in a YAML file. By default Remy will look in the current directory for "remy.yml" and use this for configuration.

.\remy.exe init
.\remy.exe run

You can also specify a path for the configuration from a file or url:

.\remy.exe run --config=c:\somepath\config.yml
.\remy.exe run --config=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yetanotherchris/Remy/master/someconfig.yml

You can write your own tasks for remy, as plugins (more info below) - these are hosted on a nuget server with the tag "remy-plugin":

.\remy.exe plugins --list
.\remy.exe plugins --install MyPlugin 
.\remy.exe run

Example YAML configuration

NOTE: YAML requires indentation with spaces

A basic example, this installs IIS and .NET:

name: "Basic example"
tasks:
  -
    description: "Install IIS, .NET framework"
    runner: windows-feature
    includeAllSubFeatures: true
    features: 
      - NET-Framework-Core
      - Web-Server
      - NET-Framework-Features
      - NET-Framework-45-ASPNET
      - Application-Server
      - MSMQ
      - WAS

This is a more advanced example. Note all Powershell scripts are run with "unrestricted" privileges - you're assumed to be responsible enough to know what you're running. If there is any doubt the remote script isn't trusted, test it first.

name: "Advanced example"
tasks:
  -
    description: "powershell example"
    runner: powershell
    commands:
      - echo "Hello world"
  -
    description: "Install chocolatey"
    runner: install-chocolatey
  -
    description: "Install IIS, .NET framework"
    runner: windows-feature
    includeAllSubFeatures: true
    features: 
      - NET-Framework-Core
      - Web-Server
      - NET-Framework-Features
      - NET-Framework-45-ASPNET
      - Application-Server

Built in plugins

Remy comes with a number of built in task plugins:

• 'install-chocolatey' - Installs Chocolatey via Powershell.
• 'windows-feature' - Installs a Windows feature via Powershell.
• 'powershell-file' - Runs a single Powershell script from a local or remote source.
• 'powershell' - Runs powershell commands.
• 'octopus-tentacle' - Configures a pre-installed Octopus Tentacle.

See PLUGINS.md for documentation about each plugin's configuration.

Installing custom plugins

You can load custom tasks via plugins in Remy. There are various commands available:

remy.exe plugins --list
remy.exe plugins --install=MyPlugin 
remy.exe plugins --list --source=http://my-nuget-server
remy.exe plugins --install=MyPrivatePlugin --source=http://my-nuget-server
remy.exe run --verbose

Remy uses Nuget to download and install plugins into the plugins/ under the directory remy.exe is running from. To find plugins, Remy searches nuget.org (or your custom nuget repository) for all packages with the remy-plugin tags.

Writing your own Plugin

Plugins are simple to write:

1. install-package Remy.Core
2. Implement ITask
3. If you require custom elements in the YAML file for your task, implement ITaskConfig. See the WindowsFeatureTask and WindowsFeatureTaskConfig files for examples. The SetConfiguration method is the important part.
4. The easiest way to debug is to clone Remy, and add a project dependency in Remy.Core to your plugin. It will then find your plugin when loading.
5. Once you're done, pack and push to nuget with the tag "remy-plugin".