Execute remote quiet MSI installs from Powershell - powershell

I am trying to use the Invoke-Command powershell cmdlet to install a MSI installer. From within powershell on the local machine and from the proper directory, the following works:
./setup /quiet
The following does not seem to work:
$script =
{
param($path)
cd "$path"
& ./setup /quiet
return pwd
}
return Invoke-Command -ComputerName $product.IPs -ScriptBlock $script -Args $sourcePath
For test purposes I am working on the local machine passing in "." for the -ComputerName argument. The paths have been verified correct before passing in to Invoke-Command, and errors generated on different versions of this code indicate the paths are correct. I have also tried with and without the "& " on the remote call to setup. Other Invoke-Command calls are working, so I doubt it is a permissions issue. I have verified that the return from the pwd call is the expected directory.
How do I get the install to work?

What error (if any) are you receiving? Unfortunately, you must run the shell as admin on your local machine to be able to connect to your local machine with invoke-command or any WINRM based command that requires administrative privilege (this is not a requirement when connecting remotely).
When connecting to loopback, I believe it is unable (for some security reason) to enumerate groups and determine if you are in an admin enabled AD or local group, which is how it auto elevates when invoking on a remote machine. The only solution may be to have a conditional which checks for localhost and if so, don't use the -ComputerName parameter.
This GitHub Issue covers it

You might try using Start-Process in your script block:
cd $path
start-process setup.exe -arg "/quiet"
Not sure if you will want or need to wait. Look at help for Start-Process.

I have had weird issues when trying to remotely execute a script on a local machine. In other words, remote powershell to the local machine. It comes back with an error that seems to say that PowerShell remoting is not enabled on the machine, but it was. I can run the script remotely from another machine to the target, but when using remoting to the same box, the issue crops up.
Verify that the WinRM service is running.
Verify powershell remoting has been enabled as in Enable-PSRemoting -force.
Verify your powershell execution policy is loose enough as in Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted, for example. If the policy was set to RemoteSigned, this might be the problem.
You might also want to verify the user you are running the script as (locally, but using remoting) has privileges to "log on as a service" or as a batch job. Just guessing there, if the above list doesn't solve anything.

Related

Starting Service on remote server failed

I encounter strange behavior when trying to remotely start a service.
on Server A i'm running this line (it's part of bigger script named RunRemoteService.ps1):
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $B_comp -ScriptBlock {Powershell.exe -File "run_service.ps1"} -Credential $cred
And the script run_service.ps1 contains the following line (it's also part of bigger script):
$my_service_name.Start()
Now here's the strange thing, If I run RunRemoteService.ps1 when I have an open remote connection (mstsc) to server B then the script works perfectly and the required service on B is really starting.
However, if I run RunRemoteService.ps1 when there is no mstsc connection with server B then the script failed (service doesn't start).
Why is this happening and how can it be resolved?
EDIT: I explored this issue a bit more and found out that this occurs only when trying to run my specific service.
that means that my service must run from a session of already logged on user (that is why it's working if I mstsc to the server before).
So I guess my new question is - is there a way I can login to remote machine from powershell?
Thanks.
If you cannot use Credential delegation as suggested by #EBGreen. Try using psexec.exe for calling the script instead of PowerShell remoting.
psexec \\server "cmd /c powershell.exe -f c:\script.ps1"
Get psexec from sysinternals.com
Ok, so my question had evolved and modified on the fly so this solution is to the latest issue I had which is - I couldn't remotely start my service if no user is logged on to remote machine.
The solution is a workaround:
I configured auto-login (using sysinternals auto-login tool) on remote server.
I used Restart-Computer cmdlet at the beginning of the test.
Now after the restart is complete and ps-session is restored, user is logged in automatically to server and I can remotely start my service.
Thanks.

Run script from Host onto PsSession Computer

I am trying to run the following code to run a script from my host computer onto a Vm that I have PSRemoted into (I am successfully remoted into the PSSession). Where am I going wrong?
Invoke-Command -FilePath C:\Script.ps1 -ComputerName PSRemoteComputer
You do not need to use both a PSSession and the Invoke-Command -ComputerName command as you have above. At that point, you'd be invoking C:\Script.ps1 on your VM and from your VM (which I assume doesn't exist, since C:\Script.ps1 exists on your machine).
If you exit your PSSession and run the command as you have typed it above, it should run correctly assuming PSRemoting is correctly enabled, and permissions for the script to run are set.
Keep in mind, objects are handled differently through PSRemoting, so if you are expecting a certain output you may be getting the deserialized version.

Script location of a remotely executed script?

How can I get a remotely executed script to know it's own location? I'm using Invoke-Command to run a script on a remote server. The script needs to create files in the directory in which it lives. Running with relative addressing doesn't work (i.e. .\output.log), the scripts generally end up in my user profile on the remote server. I tried all the methods outlined in this question but none of them seem to work when the script is remote.
Update: Provided script invocation code per request
$server='ad1hfdahp802'
$remotepath='\\ad1hfdahp802\d$\AHP\pi_exceed_presentation\pi_exceed_presentation_deploy.ps1'
$SDFEnvironment='INT'
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $server -FilePath $remotepath -ArgumentList($SDFEnvironment,$remotepath)
The remote script takes the $remotepath and turns it into a file system path.
Using -FilePath with Invoke-Command means that you read the script locally and send the content as the scriptblock to the remote computer. $PSScriptRoot only works when the script is executed directly on the target. You could try using:
Invoke-Command - ComputerName "computer1" -Scriptblock { & '\\server\path\to\script.ps1' } -Authentication Credssp
Be aware that you need CredSSP to make this work since the remote computer can't use your credentials to access network-resources without it. As an alternative, you could use psexec (or start a process remotely). Ex.
psexec \\computer1 powershell -noprofile -file \\server\path\to\script.ps1
After trying some of the changes proposed I've come to understand that the Invoke-Command isn't actually running the remote script at its original location, but rather loading it from the original location and then running it under the context of PowerShell as the user running the local script. The "script directory" is actually a directory in the user's workspace regardless of where the script originally lived.
This clarifies things for me somewhat. While there may be ways to divine where the script originally came from or to actually start a session on the remote server then run the script as a "local" script there, the need for the remote script to further access other servers, creating multiple hops in authentication, means I have to add CredSSP to the mix.
It seems my original plan, to pass the path I'm using to locate the script to the script so it can place output files in the original directory, is probably the best approach given that I also have to add CredSSP to the mix.
I'm open to refutation, but I don't think any of the proposed solutions actually improve the functionality of the remote script so I'm going to stick with what I started with for now. Thanks to everyone for their contributions.
Enter a session on the remote server, and call the script from there.
local PS> Enter-PSSession -ComputerName $server ...
remote PS> powershell d:\AHP\...\script.ps1
remote PS> exit
local PS>
Then you can use $PSScriptRoot in the script in the remote server to get the local path of the directory of the script on the remote server.
EDIT:
To locate the script on the remote server, you can use your knowledge of the network path of the script file, and parse the output of net share to map network path to local path on the remote server.
remote PS> net share | where { $_.StartsWith('D$ ') } | foreach { [regex]::Split($_, " +")[1]}

Powershell tasks from local machine to remote machine

I am performing below tasks on remote machine from a local machine:
Creating/Deleting/Modifying some directory
Copying some folder from local to remote machine
Installing some .exe silently with noninteractive option
Exectuing some batch files
I want to write a script in PowerShell. Novice to PowerShell. I have done some basic investigation of terms like "PowerShell Remoting" etc.
What are the things I need to look for? Related exmple for this will help, where should I look for those?
Reading from docs on MSDN:
To run a single command on a remote computer, use the ComputerName parameter. To run a series of related commands that share data, use the New-PSSession cmdlet to create a PSSession (a persistent connection) on the remote computer, and then use the Session parameter of Invoke-Command to run the command in the PSSession. To run a command in a disconnected session, use the InDisconnectedSession parameter. To run a command in a background job, use the AsJob parameter.
So basically you should do something like:
$session = New-PSSession
Invoke-Command -Session $session -FilePath <PathToScript>
There is a good section on PowerShell remoting in the Getting Started with PowerShell 3.0 Virtual Academy class. If you don't want to start there, read the about_Remote help topic, then move on to the other remoting help topics listed at the bottom.

powershell v2 remote features?

Just listened to Hansellminutes podcast. He had a talk with two Microsoft PS developers. They mentioned PS V2 remoting features.
I have some scripts based on PS v1. In terms of remoting commands or executions, I installed PS on local and a remote machines. Then I use PsExec.exe to push bat on remote to execute PS scripts. Now I am thinking to take advantage of PS V2.
To simple questions I have, to get a list of files on local, I can use the following codes:
$fs = Get-Item -Path $Path | Where { !$_.PSIsContainer ... } # more constrains in ...
if ( $fs -ne $null )
{
# continue to work on each file in the collection
...
}
What is the equivalent command to get a collection of files from a remote? I prefer to get a similar collection of file objects back so that I can access to their properties.
The second question is how to exec a command on remote with external application? I tried to use WIM Process before, but I could not get WMI class working on a case of Windows 2008 server. Then I used PsExec.exe to push a bat to a remote to execute PS script. It works in the cases. However, the problem I have to install PS on the remote as well. I am going to working another remote. I'll try to avoid to install PS on the remote. Can I take PS V2 advantage to execute a command on a remote Windows? What's the new commands?
By the way, normally, I have to pass user name and pwd to a remote. I guess in PS I have to pass user/pwd as well.
You can either put your code above in a script file and invoke it on a remote computer using V2 remoting like so:
PS> Invoke-Command remotePCName -file c:\myscript.ps1
You will need to be running with admin privs (elevated if UAC enabled) in order to use remoting. The command above will copy the script to the remote machine, execute it and return deserialized objects. These objects are essentially property bags. They are not "live" objects and setting properties on them like IsReadOnly will not affect the remote file. If you want to set properties then do it in your script that executes on the remote PC.
The option if you have a little bit of script is to use a scriptblock like so:
PS> Invoke-Command remotePCName { Get-Item C:\*.txt | Where {$_.IsReadOnly }
You can execute native commands (EXE) on the remote computer in either script or a scriptblock. You only need to make sure the EXE is available on the remote PC.
Regarding credentials, if you're on a domain and you have admin privs on the remote computer you won't need to pass credentials as your default credentials should work. If you need to run as a specific user then use the -Credential parameter on Invoke-Command like so:
PS> $cred = Get-Credential
PS> icm remotePCName { gci c:\windows\system32 -r *.sys } -credential $cred
Regarding your last comment, no PowerShell will use Windows integrated security so you should not have to pass any username or password unless you wanted to run it as a different user.
If you haven't yet enabled PS remoting, every time I've tried I've had to actually turn off UAC while I was enabling remoting (then I could re-enable UAC once remoting was enabled). Running Enable-PSRemoting from an elevated command prompt was not enough and the error message was not at all useful.
EDIT: I've just confirmed in a fresh Windows 7 VM that this is not an issue. It could have been a beta issue that I am no longer experiencing as I've been using beta/rc/ctp of PowerShell and Windows 7 for a long time.