I'd like to have a script that creates a local user based on choices from the user.
I currently do it by putting the command in a variable then I invoke it.
$pw = Read-Host "Enter password" -AsSecureString
$command = "New-LocalUser -Name $name -Password $pw $accountparam $accexpiredate $passwordparam $pwexpiredate $canchangepwparam"
iex $command
Everything is working fine except the password, the command fails with the following error :
Unable to convert the "System.Security.SecureString" value from the "System.String" type to the "System.Security.SecureString" type
If I remove the password parameter and let PowerShell automatically ask it then it works, but I'd like to manually ask it.
Can someone help me ?
Well I fixed it, here is the solution in case someone is asking himself the same question and finds this
$command = "New-LocalUser -Name $name -Password (ConvertTo-SecureString '$pw' -AsPlainText -Force) $accountparam $accexpiredate $passwordparam $pwexpiredate $canchangepwparam"
Related
I am bit of a lazy guy, so I have created a script that opens many applications for me. Works fine as ISE opened with Administrator credentials, also opens apps with admin creds, however some of them need a different credentials.
Is it possible, to make powershell remember typed in password each time I log in and open it? (I know that variables are stored only till ps is opened)
Thing is - I cannot store a visible password in profile/text file or in a script, as this is a jump server used by many people. Is it somehow possible to type a password once, make PS encrypt it and each time I will open PS, it will decrypt it and use? or any workaround possible around this?
edit with code:
It's the only part I would like to change
$currentPW = "some password"
$credentials = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ("domain\username",$CurrentPW)
start "c:\application.exe" -credential $credentials
It kinda works but it would require me, to input the password everytime I log in to device, so I could go for option like:
$currentPW = read-host "Provide your password"
$credentials = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ("domain\username",$CurrentPW)
start "c:\application.exe" -credential $credentials
but this would require me to input the password each time I log in to system and open PS as it does not remember variables after restart.
So...is it even possible to make this work?^^
You can use ConvertTo-SecureString to encrypt the password using the users account key, then save this secure string to a file to load at a later time.
This assumes you are the only one with access to the logon account (not an account with shared credentials), as anyone who can logon as the account can decrypt the file.
$username = "domain\username"
$passwordFile = "C:\folder\EncryptedPassword.txt"
#if password file exists: populate $securePwd from file contents
If (Test-Path $passwordFile) {
$pwdTxt = Get-Content $passwordFile
$securePwd = $pwdTxt | ConvertTo-SecureString
}
#if no file: prompt for password, create file and populate $securePwd
Else {
$password = Read-Host "Provide your password"
$securePwd = $password | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force
$securePwd | ConvertFrom-SecureString | Set-Content $passwordFile
}
$credentials = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList $username, $securePwd
Start-Process "c:\application.exe" -Credential $credentials
If you have PowerShell 3.0 or newer, you can also combine Get-Credential with Export-CliXml to export a PSCredential object as an XML file. Example:
Get-Credential | Export-CliXml "C:\XML Files\credential.xml"
You can then import the credentials using Import-CliXml. Example:
$credential = Import-CliXml "C:\Xml Files\credential.xml"
Note that the password is encrypted using DPAPI, so you can only import the credentials using Import-CliXml on the same computer using the same user account that was used to export the credentials using Export-CliXml.
I am trying to develop a custom task using Powershell which needs to use Start-Job -Cred to switch to another user in places. Agent is running as user A and I need to switch to user B. Logging in to the server running the agent as user A and then running the script works fine - the Start-Job switches credentials and runs a scriptblock as user B.
Running exactly the same thing from VSTS in the cloud using the same (on-prem) agent server running the agent as user A fails with the uninformative error:
"The background process reported an error with the following message: ."
I have done more debugging and there is no other error message anywhere. It seems to be related to the -Cred parameter of Start-Job as it makes no difference what is in the script block run and if I remove the -Cred parameter, it's also fine.
User A is in the Adminstrators group on the server running the agent
Agent runs as user A
Any ideas?
Try it with Invoke-Command, for example (output current user name):
$mypwd = ConvertTo-SecureString -String "[password, could use variable]" -Force -AsPlainText
$Cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential('[user name]',$mypwd)
$scriptToExecute =
{
$VerbosePreference='Continue'
Write-Output "$env:UserName"
# Write-Verbose "Verbose" 4>&1
}
$b = Invoke-Command -ComputerName localhost -ScriptBlock $scriptToExecute -Credential $Cred
Write-Output "Content of variable B"
Write-Host $b
Based on your experiences, your credentials are not being passed properly. Try this method and insert it into your script:
Outside of your script, get the securestring object-
Read-Host -AsSecureString | ConvertFrom-SecureString
Take the output of this command (where you enter the password), and put it before your start-job-
$Secure = ConvertTo-SecureString -String 'above output'
$Cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential('Username',$Secure)
Start-Job -Credential $Cred
The SecureString can be reversed by someone with know-how, but if the script and/or account is secure, then that doesn't matter.
I need a way to encrypt a password using a command line argument while in the console without prompting via Get-Credential. Example:
.\Script.ps1 -User Blah -Password ********
I have tried several different methods, using the type securestring and trying to pass Read-Host into the parameter but everything so far continue to display clear text in the console.
Here is what I have tried.
param (
[string]$user,
[securestring]$password)
param (
[string]$user,
[string]$password = $(Read-Host -AsSecureString))
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Suppose your password is thePassword.
You cannot just do .\Script.ps1 -user "Blah" -password "thePassword" and expect the thePassword to become ***********.
Here are some of the things you can do.
First, make sure your parameter types are correct. The reason your second parameter set does work is that you made the type of $password a [String]. Instead, your parameter list should look like the following.
param(
[String]$user,
[SecureString]$password = $(Read-Host -AsSecureString)
)
Now, with this code, if you do the following, it will fail.
.\Script.ps1 -user "Blah" -password "thePassword"
This is because "thePassword" is [String] and not [SecureString].
If you want to actually be able to pass the password into the script, you can create the [SecureString] outside calling the script, or have a wrapper script that calls Script.ps1, or a few other ways. For example...
# Doing it Manually in two lines
$password = Read-Host -AsSecureString
.\Script.ps1 -user "Blah" -password $password
OR
# Doing it Manually in one line
.\Script.ps1 -user "Blah" -password $(Read-Host -AsSecureString)
OR
# Taking advantage of the Default Value for $password
.\Script.ps1 -user "Blah"
# Will automatically prompt for $password upon executing
OR
# Doing it in a Wrapper Script
# You can save the following in a separate script
# OR you can add it to Script.ps1 itself
$user = Read-Host "Enter Username"
$password = Read-Host -AsSecureString "Enter Password"
.\Script.ps1 -user $user -password $password
Thanks, from your comments I think I understand your issue better now.
You want to invoke a script from the command line and provide a masked password parameter, without waiting for it to prompt you.
Unfortunately, there is no way to do this.
Your second parameter block that uses Read-Host -AsSecureString will work as long as you don't supply -password at all. The script will then prompt you for the password and it will be masked.
But this is basically the same as using Get-Credential.
I have several domains and one admin account in each one. It is a great pain to log into each domain to change password every month..
I have therefore written a script that will connect to all domains and check to see if I have already changed the password or if I am still using the old one.
If I am using the old one the script should update it.
I connect to the domains (sequentially) with
$oldPassword = Read-Host "Enter old password" -AsSecureString
$newPassword = Read-Host "Enter new password" -AsSecureString
$oldCredentials = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist "$domain\$adminusername",$oldPassword
Connect-QADService -Service $domain -Credential $oldCredentials
and if I get a successfull connection with $oldcredentials I try to change pwd with
GET-QADUSER $adminusername | SET-QADUSER -UserPassword $newPassword
I am guessing that I am not passing the secure string correctly to SET-QADUSER but I've found no documentation on another way to do it.
Please advice:)
SET-QADUSER -UserPassword accept [string] type not [System.Security.SecureString].
Try to pass just a string as password.
Is there any way to do expect and spawn with powershell.
I have to parse a CLI program with powershell which is asking for password is there any way to input this password via powershell.
In perl or python even in bash you can use expect/spawn
Is there any solution in powershell ?
One way to do this would be to create a text file with the encrypted password one time, then call this file as the password in as many scripts as necessary.
Create the password file once:
$pwd = Read-Host 'Enter password for encrypting:' -AsSecureString | ConvertFrom-SecureString | Out-File -Path 'C:\SpecialFiles\CLIPassword.txt'
Then you can use it whenever it's needed:
$pass = (Get-Content -Path 'C:\SpecialFiles\CLIPassword.txt' | ConvertTo-SecureString)
$creds = New-Object -TypeName System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList (<insert CLI UserName>, $pass)
Then when you need to supply the username and password to your script, you simply pipe
$creds | <command>
or if the command supports the -Credential parameter
<command> -Credential $creds
If your command needs the user name and password entered separately, you can do that by specifying the property name:
<command> -UserName $creds.UserName -Password $creds.Password
You can use Read-Host to prompt the user for input. See here for more information.
$pass = Read-Host 'What is your password?' -AsSecureString
$decodedpass = [System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::PtrToStringAuto([System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::SecureStringToBSTR($pass))
I'm sure what you want to do with spawn, but you can execute other scripts or executables by just calling them
.\MyOtherScript.ps1