Execute bat file to remote client - powershell

I am trying to open an HTML file to a client "ClientA" that is locally copied to a folder "C:\1.html" remotely by executing the bellow powershell command
$Username = 'username'
$Password = 'password'
$pass = ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText $Password -Force
$Cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList
$Username,$pass
Invoke-Command -ComputerName ClientA -ScriptBlock { Invoke-Expression -
Command:"cmd.exe /c 'C:\1.bat'" } -credential $Cred
The "1.bat" batch has the bellow lines
START iexplore -k "C:\1.html"
I get no error on execution... but the file is not opening to the remote client!
Any ideas?
Thanks!

The script is correct, no errors within, but probably it is not doing what you believe it does.
When invoking a remote administration session powershell is working on the remote computer with its own session, which does not have desktop interaction so you are not launching internet explorer in the main shell from a session that an eventual user could have left logged in.
To double check that your code is working you can use the following content in the 1.bat
START iexplore -k "C:\1.html"
echo %PATH% >> c:\patlog.txt
echo "DONE" >> c:\1_log.txt
You will see the echo from the path and from the final "DONE" on your console as confirm that the bat has been executed.
Internet Explorer anyway is not going anyway to show up in any logged user session, as it is also discussed at this page:
https://serverfault.com/questions/690852/use-powershell-to-start-a-gui-program-on-a-remote-machine

Related

SSH Connection & Commands using PLINK with Powershell

I'm trying to create a simple script which run a command and send the output to a variable.
this is the script:
$output = &"<Path to PLINK>\PLINK.exe" -ssh <username>#<IP Address> -pw <password> "my command"
the thing is the command im running is like "top" in linux - a task manager which won't quit until enter is being pressed.
how can i take the CLI output from that situation without touching my keyboard?
i wrote an automation with opening cmd and sending "keys" function inorder to get what i want but i cannot get the output from the CLI by doing so. (also i dont beleive its the right way.)
Thanks in advance.
As I saw in the following page:
Run As Admin
using the following code will run the programm PLINK.EXE for you.
$Username = 'Username'
$Password = 'Password'
$SecurePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString $Password -AsPlainText -Force
$Credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ($Username,$SecurePassword)
Start-Process powershell.exe -Credential $Credential -NoNewWindow -ArgumentList "(Start-Process -FilePath '\\some\path\app.exe' -ArgumentList '/q).ExitCode"
I solved my issue by installing POSH-SSH module for Powershell.

Powershell Script Wrapper for Running as Admin

I am writing a script to deploy through group policy. The script deletes a number of registry settings to fix an issue we have on our build of Windows. The script needs to run as an administrator as the keys exist in hives that require admin rights to delete.
Because GP runs powershell scripts as the logged on user, I am looking at creating a wrapper which will read an encrypted password for the local user account and then run the script with it.
My script is able to read the credential, but I am getting errors when running the start-process command. If I try and reference the script it will give the error that the path doesn't exist, even though you can dump the contents using cat .
I then tried reading it into a variable and running powershell with the -command argument. If I do this I get an error.
"Start-Process : This command cannot be run due to the error: The parameter is incorrect"
I understand that I need to enclose the code in braces, but I am not sure how this is done as concatenating them to the string doesn't work.
if($connected) {
$Encrypted = Get-Content <PATH TO PASSWORD FILE>
$pass = ConvertTo-SecureString -String $Encrypted -Key (1..16)
$user = <MY ADMIN ACCOUNT>
$Credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential $user, $pass
echo $(pwd)
echo $(cat <PATH TO SCRIPT>)
$code = $( cat <PATH TO SCRIPT> )
#Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock {$code} -Credential $Credential
#Start-Process powershell.exe <PATH TO SCRIPT> -Credential $Credential
Start-Process powershell.exe -ArgumentList "-command $code" -Credential $Credential
}
I just need a way of executing the code in my second script, but I can't work out how to do this as it's not behaving as expected. Sorry, as I am sure I am missing something obvious.

Start-Process powershell credentials don't work but when using cmd it does

I am trying to run a powershell script from another powershell script passing in the credentials of a different user and then using the credentials:
Start-Process powershell.exe -Credential "LON\my-user" -NoNewWindow -ArgumentList "-file C:\DevopsScripts\stuckApps.ps1"
I have this is numerous different ways all get the same error. I have tried setting the username and password before the command:
$username = "LON\my-user"
$password = "pass"
$PSS = ConvertTo-SecureString $password -AsPlainText -Force
$cred = new-object system.management.automation.PSCredential $username,$PSS
$env:USERNAME
Start-Process powershell.exe -Credential $cred -NoNewWindow -ArgumentList "-file C:\DevopsScripts\stuckApps.ps1"
But everything I try gets the error:
Start-Process : This command cannot be run due to the error: The user name or password is incorrect.
I know the username and password are correct as they have been tested on the cmd which it works fine:
C:\Users\ADM-me>runas /noprofile /user:LON\my-user"powershell.exe C:\DevopsScripts\stuckApps.ps1"
What am I doing wrong here and how could I fix this, preferably by setting the password beforehand, so this can be automated. Also this does not need to be done using Start-Process, just this is the closest thing I could find to working.
I think the problem I am having is this, in stuck apps it has this:
$conn = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection
$conn.ConnectionString = "Server = mssql.co.uk; Database = mydata; Integrated Security = true;"
$conn.Open()
I need this to run the credentials that I am trying to pass through it or else I get this error.
`Exception calling "Open" with "0" argument(s): "Login failed. The login is from an untrusted domain and cannot be used with Windows authentication."
But I can't pass the credentials through as the only ones that work are admin ones, (which I have but then that will throw the error above). Is it possible for me to use the admin logins to access stuck apps then use the logins needed to connect on stuck apps as an AD login.
Your first attempt with -Credential "LON\my-user" can't work, but your second attempt is correct, building the object of class PSCredential, as required (see the type in Get-Help Start-Process -Parameter Credential, it is PSCredential and not String). I tried the same with some reused code here, and it works here both or CMD and PS1 calling a PS1 test script via Powershell.exe, using a local test account (sorry, no domain #home).
So even though my code ist not identical and the domain of the user is the local machine, the approach is the same compared to yours and - sorry that this does not solve your problem - I don't see that you are doing sth. wrong.
To play safe, please make sure though to test with the same Powershell version, the below scripts executed under W10 1607 (so Powershell 5.1.14393.1198), all scripts in the same directory.
testscript.ps1
write-host "Testscript is run with user: $($env:USERNAME)"
Start-Sleep 2
testrun.cmd
runas /noprofile /user:%COMPUTERNAME%\myaccount "powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -file %~dp0testscript.ps1"
testrun.ps1
$Username = "$($env:COMPUTERNAME)\myaccount"
$Password = 'mypassword'
$SecurePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString -String $Password -AsPlainText -Force
$ScriptFile = Join-Path -Path $PSScriptRoot -ChildPath 'testscript.ps1'
$Credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential( $Username, $SecurePassword)
$StartOpts = #{ 'FilePath' = 'powershell.exe'
'Credential' = $Credential
'NoNewWindow' = $false
'ArgumentList' = #( '-f', $ScriptFile,
'-ExecutionPolicy', 'Bypass',
'-NoProfile'
)
}
Start-Process #StartOpts
Some remarks on testrun.ps1
Don't mind the parameters for Start-Process being passed as a hashtable, it's just better readable for me, otherwise it makes not difference
The ArgumentList is being passed as a string array here - I prefer it this way so that it is automatically taken care for double qouting parameters, e.g. when the pathname of the script directory would contain spaces
The parameter -NoNewWindow passed to Start-Process seems not to have any effect here - a new window is opened
I always recommend to add the parameters -Noprofile and -ExecutionPolicy Bypass when using Powershell.exe to launch scripts or execute commands, just to make sure it works despite of the Execution Policy set or any present user or machine profile scripts.
However, at least the parameter -NoProfile seems not to work the same when Powershell.exe is being called fom the above CMD or PS1. Called from PS1, my machine profile gets nevertheless executed, but not fom CMD... interesting! The MSDN: PowerShell.exe Command-Line Help just says about this parameter: "Does not load the Windows PowerShell profile." Funny! There are six of them, see Technet: Understanding the Six PowerShell Profiles. I use "Current User, Current Host – console" and "All Users, Current Host – console". Lesson learned, but I am not sure if it's a bug or a feature.

“Access Denied” trying to execute a command using alternate credentials as user SYSTEM

I have a script that runs as SYSTEM, if i try to start-process notepad.exe it's working fine. if i add -credentials $cred it shows Access Denied. The credentials i pass over has local admin access, so why is there Access Denied? with procmon on powershell.exe i can not identify any access denied operation, i can see that powershell access notepad.exe with success result.
any ideas?
in one forum-post I read that it's not possible to execute a command with -credentials as SYSTEM. is that so?
if so, is there any workaround?
to my background, i use a software distribution where any installation runs as SYSTEM, from there i want to execute a powershell script as different user.
i found a solution:
$secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString 'password' -AsPlainText -Force
$mycreds = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ('domain\user', $secpasswd)
Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock { Start-Process powershell c:\temp\mmc.ps1 -verb runas -wait} -ComputerName localhost -Credential $mycreds -Verbose
its not exactly what i want because here you need to enable psremoting first. but its like a workaround.
any idea how this is possible without invoke-command would be appreciated

Run powershell as another user

I can't wrap my head around this at all. I have a powershell script that works fine as long as the user has admin rights, because it is moving data to a NAS share that requires write permissions. My issue is I am putting the script in the GPO Startup process. So I need to run the powershell script as another user.
Do I somehow add the new user credentals inside the script itself, or use another process to runas the other user?
I've tried creating another .ps1 script to start the original script, but it didn't work.
I really want to be able to do this in the original script that's doing all the work.
$username = 'domain\user'
$password = 'password'
$cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList #($username,(ConvertTo-SecureString -String $password -AsPlainText -Force))
Start-Process -FilePath D:\Scripts\Monitor.ps1 -ComputerName localhost -Credential $cred
and I've tried:
Start-Process -FilePath D:\Scripts\Monitor.ps1 -ComputerName (NAS IP Address) -Credential $cred
This works fine inside a powershell script, so how do I get this to run as another user?
& D:\Scripts\monitor.ps1
We have decided to run this as a task under task scheduler at boot up run by a service account that has all the correct permissions. Not what I really wanted but it does work