Failed to complete #converge action: [password is a required option]

The Chef Test Kitchen EC2 driver can connect to Windows instances two ways.

Using a custom image with known admin account credentials

When we use a custom built image which has a local administrator account with known username and password, specify it in the kitchen.yml file.

driver:
  name: ec2
  aws_ssh_key_id: MY_SSH_KEY_NAME
  ...

platforms:
  - name: windows-2019
    driver:
      image_id: "ami-MY_CUSTOM_AMI_ID"
      instance_type: t3.medium
      security_group_ids: ['sg-MY_SECURITY_GROUP_ID1','sg-MY_SECURITY_GROUP_ID2']
    transport:
      name: winrm
      elevated: true            # Required for the installation of some Windows features
      connection_timeout: 60
      connection_retries: 10
      username: MY_ADMIN_USERNAME
      password: MY_ADMIN_PASSWORD

Standard Amazon AMI with random password

When we use an Amazon standard Windows AMI, the kitchen-ec2 driver needs to retrieve the random password by using the SSH key the server was launched with.

driver:
  name: ec2
  aws_ssh_key_id: MY_SSH_KEY_NAME
  ...

platforms:
  - name: windows-2019
    driver:
      image_id: "ami-MY_CUSTOM_AMI_ID"
      instance_type: t3.medium
      security_group_ids: ['sg-MY_SECURITY_GROUP_ID1','sg-MY_SECURITY_GROUP_ID2']
    transport:
      name: winrm
      elevated: true            # Required for the installation of some Windows features
      connection_timeout: 60
      connection_retries: 10
      username: Administrator
      ssh_key: MY_SSH_KEY_PATH/MY_SSH_KEY_FILE.pem

If the ssh key location is not specified in the transport section of the platform in the kitchen.yml file, we get the error message:

Failed to complete #converge action: [password is a required option] on …

Troubleshooting

When you get the error message:

Failed to complete #converge action: [password is a required option] on …

• Make sure the transport section of the platform in the kitchen.yml file contains the line
  ssh_key: MY_SSH_KEY_PATH/MY_SSH_KEY_FILE.pem
• It is possible, that the saved password of the Windows instance in the .kitchen/...yml file is not valid anymore. Destroy the instance and execute the kitchen converge command again.