Run powershell as another user - powershell

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

Related

Looking to map an Azure Fileshare as a mapped network drive on an Azure Windows VM via another machine/Custom Script Execution

I'm attempting to provision a Windows VM and I need to map some Azure fileshares to drives for the VM user that will be interacting with the VM.
I've been trying to make "az vm extension set"/Custom Script Execution work for me by calling some PowerShell scripts to setup the mapping to the fileshare, but since the process runs as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM, the mappings aren't working, obviously. I've tried to switch user contexts in my scripts via having an intermediate script that changes context to my VM user and then calling another script that does the work, but that doesn't seem to be working.
$scriptFile = $args[0]
$username = $args[1]
$password = $args[2]
$securePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString $password -AsPlainText -Force
$credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential $username,
$securePassword
Start-Process Powershell.exe -Credential $credential $scriptFile
Unfortunately it seems nothing gets run in the $scriptFile that I call, and I can't get any errors out of standard out/err, so I'm at a loss as to how this can be done.
Certainly someone out there has had to run scripts as another user via the Custom Script Execution method before, I'm hoping they happen to read this post.
Is there a way to set what user the Custom Script Execution runs as?
No, there is no way of setting a user under which script extension runs.
You also should use -PassThru and -Wait and\or -RedirectStandardError\-RedirectStandardInput to your command invocation. Also, add -ErrorAction Stop to your commands to propagate errors.

run a batch script as differend user inside Powershell script

I have a powershell script and from inside this, i want to run a batch script as differend user.
That means i have a AD service user account and with this i must run the batch script.
It must work like a scheduled task in windows, where you can run it as differend user without store the password.
Now the question is how i can run the batch script from inside a powershell script with the service user and don't need to store the password in the Powershell script?
i have tried this:
Start-Process -Credentil "Domain\Account" -FilePath "CMD.exe" -Argumentlist "/c C:\myScript.cmd"
The result is that a window pops up where i must typ in the password for the service user.
Can any one help me with this?
Thank you and best regards,
Nico
You need to register system scheduler task with credentials or store password in the script:
$credentials = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList #($username,(ConvertTo-SecureString -String $password -AsPlainText -Force))
Start-Process -Credential $credentials -FilePath "cmd.exe"

“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

How do I execute a powershell script under a specified credential without a prompt?

I'm writing an 'Action Script' in VMWare AppDirector 'AppD' which installs MS Dynamics. (My action script is actually a powershell script). The way this works is that AppD will execute a powershell script on a newly deployed server, using a builtin administrator account. This script is one of the last steps in a highly orchestrated deployment. At this stage my SQL server has been deployed, the databases loaded, and I'm performing the final deployment.
When I run my script logged in as myself, everything works great. But of course that's executing under 'mydomain\myusername' which has access to the SQL server etc. However, when AppD executes this script under a local builtin account, it doesn't have the credentials needed by setup to authenticate against SQL, and make proper connections for install to succeed.
My first attempt was to just call a script, that invokes my actual deployment script, so I can pass credentials;
$user = "mydomain\myusername"
$pword = ConvertTo-SecureString -String "mypassword" -AsPlainText -Force
$credential = New-Object -TypeName System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList $User, $pword
Invoke-Command -FilePath "C:\Scripts\DeployAOS.ps1" -Credential $credential -Computer localhost
This looked like it might have worked, but when reviewing the install log I see the following error;
2015-03-09 13:15:19Z Property DbSqlServer set to: 'SQLSERVER001'
2015-03-09 13:15:23Z Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON'.
My original DeployAOS.ps1 script contains this line, which kicks off the install;
# Perform AOS Installation
Start-Process -FilePath $exeAOSSetup -ArgumentList $cfgAOS -Wait
I have also tried just modifying my DeployAOS.ps1 to set the 'System.Management.Automation.PSCredential' object w\ Username\Password, and doing something like this;
# Perform AOS Installation
Start-Process -FilePath $exeAOSSetup -ArgumentList $cfgAOS -Credential $credentials -Wait
And it really didn't like that. It feels like the AOS setup needs to be executed under a domain user, that has access to the SQL server, and maybe even have a user profile loaded while setup runs (So it can create a desktop shortcut, etc.)
Any ideas how I might go about solving this problem? I'm fairly new to scripting in powershell, so any help would be appreciated.

Run ScriptBlock with different credentials

I have a script, that determines a userid; once I have that userid, I want to run a script block against that userid using different credentials. Is this possible? Can anyone show me examples of this?
I got it, thanks to Trevor Sullivan for pointing me in the right direction. I ended up just putting my second ps1 file into a scriptblock, and running it as a job, and passing it the arguments from the main script, like this
$job = Start-Job -scriptblock {
param ($username)
some code to run against the variable that was passed in
} -Args $target -credential $Cred
$target being the variable I want to pass to my scriptblock.
$username being the parameter that the scriptblock accepts Thanks.
I know this was answered a long time ago, but I thought I'd add another option for those looking that returns data without having to retrieve it.
We can create a helper script that creates a pscredential and then uses it to start a local PSSession to run a script or scriptblock in a different user's context. You need to get the user password from somewhere, preferably entered as a secure string or retrieved from a Key Vault, but for the example our helper script will take it as a string parameter.
Script contents:
param ([string]$username,[string]$password)
$Username = 'username#domain.com'
$Password = ConvertTo-SecureString -String $password -AsPlainText -Force
$Credential = New-Object -Type PSCredential($Username,$Password)
$Session = New-PSSession -Credential $Credential
Invoke-Command -Session $Session -FilePath C:\Path\to\some\script.ps1
You can also use -ScriptBlock instead of -FilePath if you have a simple chunk of code to run or you have converted a script to a script block.
Hope this helps somebody out!
Security context for a session is established when the session is initialized. You can't arbitrarily run commands under a different context within the session. To run under a different security context (set of credentials) you'll need to initialize a new session under those credentials and run it there.
If you look at the help for Invoke-Command, you'll note that the -Credential parameter is only valid in parameter sets that specify a remote session by computername, uri, or session. You can also use -credential with Start-Job, which will run the command in a new session on the local machine.
This code will launch PowerShell in Administrator mode using the credentials provided and then run the code in the script block. There might be others ways but this works for me.
$account= # AD account
$password = # AD user password
$passwordSecure = ConvertTo-SecureString ($password) -AsPlainText -Force
$Cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ($account, $passwordSecure)
$ScriptBlock = {
whoami
start-sleep 3
}
 
# Run PowerShell as Administrator with Custom Crednetails
start-Process powershell.exe -Credential $Cred -ArgumentList "-Command Start-Process powershell.exe -Verb Runas -ArgumentList '-Command $ScriptBlock'" -Wait