Automating Windows Server Hardening on Safespring Compute: From Launch to Locked Down

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

When you spin up a Windows Server instance in a cloud environment like Safespring Compute, you get a blank slate, no password, no SSH, no remote access at all.

This post walks through the full automation chain: using cloudbase-init to bootstrap the instance at first boot, then running an Ansible playbook to apply a security baseline.

The result is a fully hardened Windows Server you can provision in one shot, hands-off, from the OpenStack CLI.

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Automating Windows Server Hardening on Safespring Compute: From Launch to Locked Down