Add new configuration parameter to make Windows async startup timeout configurable (#66670)

* Add new configuration parameter to make this timeout configurable

* Rename keys to be more correct and reformat exception message for whitespace handling

* Rename config away from default prefix. Add vars element and associated changes to support.

* Update 65001-allow_configuring_async_startup_timeout.yml

Co-authored-by: Matt Davis <nitzmahone@users.noreply.github.com>

changelogs/fragments/65001-allow_configuring_async_startup_timeout.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+minor_changes:
+  - Add a new config parameter, WIN_ASYNC_STARTUP_TIMEOUT, which allows configuration of the named pipe connection
+    timeout under Windows when launching async tasks.

lib/ansible/config/base.yml

@@ -1846,6 +1846,23 @@ VARIABLE_PRECEDENCE:
   - {key: precedence, section: defaults}
   type: list
   version_added: "2.4"
+WIN_ASYNC_STARTUP_TIMEOUT:
+  name: Windows Async Startup Timeout
+  default: 5
+  description:
+    - For asynchronous tasks in Ansible (covered in Asynchronous Actions and Polling),
+      this is how long, in seconds, to wait for the task spawned by Ansible to connect back to the named pipe used
+      on Windows systems. The default is 5 seconds. This can be too low on slower systems, or systems under heavy load.
+    - This is not the total time an async command can run for, but is a separate timeout to wait for an async command to
+      start. The task will only start to be timed against its async_timeout once it has connected to the pipe, so the
+      overall maximum duration the task can take will be extended by the amount specified here.
+  env: [{name: ANSIBLE_WIN_ASYNC_STARTUP_TIMEOUT}]
+  ini:
+    - {key: win_async_startup_timeout, section: defaults}
+  type: integer
+  vars:
+    - {name: ansible_win_async_startup_timeout}
+  version_added: '2.10'
 YAML_FILENAME_EXTENSIONS:
   name: Valid YAML extensions
   default: [".yml", ".yaml", ".json"]

lib/ansible/executor/powershell/async_wrapper.ps1

@@ -145,11 +145,16 @@ try {
     $result_json = ConvertTo-Json -InputObject $result -Depth 99 -Compress
     Set-Content $results_path -Value $result_json
 
-    Write-AnsibleLog "INFO - waiting for async process to connect to named pipe for 5 seconds" "async_wrapper"
+    $np_timeout = $Payload.async_startup_timeout * 1000
+    Write-AnsibleLog "INFO - waiting for async process to connect to named pipe for $np_timeout milliseconds" "async_wrapper"
     $wait_async = $pipe.BeginWaitForConnection($null, $null)
-    $wait_async.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne(5000) > $null
+    $wait_async.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne($np_timeout) > $null
     if (-not $wait_async.IsCompleted) {
-        throw "timeout while waiting for child process to connect to named pipe"
+        $msg = "Ansible encountered a timeout while waiting for the async task to start and connect to the named"
+        $msg += "pipe. This can be affected by the performance of the target - you can increase this timeout using"
+        $msg += "WIN_ASYNC_STARTUP_TIMEOUT or just for this host using the win_async_startup_timeout hostvar if "
+        $msg += "this keeps happening."
+        throw $msg
     }
     $pipe.EndWaitForConnection($wait_async)
 

lib/ansible/executor/powershell/module_manifest.py

@@ -294,6 +294,7 @@ def _create_powershell_wrapper(b_module_data, module_path, module_args,
         exec_manifest["actions"].insert(0, 'async_wrapper')
         exec_manifest["async_jid"] = str(random.randint(0, 999999999999))
         exec_manifest["async_timeout_sec"] = async_timeout
+        exec_manifest["async_startup_timeout"] = C.config.get_config_value("WIN_ASYNC_STARTUP_TIMEOUT", variables=task_vars)
 
     if become and become_method == 'runas':
         finder.scan_exec_script('exec_wrapper')