PSEXEC from powershell

Question

I have been struggling getting powershell to run Psexec. It works fine for single line commands. but i need to call SCOM to put the server in maintenance mode through Psexec...

 $output = .\pstools\PsExec.exe \\scomserver-u $user -p $password -w c:\scom -h "c:\scom\agentmm.exe servertoputinmaintenancemode 4 Automated Maintenance Mode Now +45m" 

I have tried to put quotes after every sentence but it doenst help.. I get this error

PsExec v1.98 - Execute processes remotely Copyright (C) 2001-2010 Mark Russinovich Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

The handle is invalid.

Connecting to scomservername...Starting PsExec service on scomservername...C onnecting with PsExec service on scomservername...Error communicating with PsExec servi ce on scomservername:

Answer 1

I wrote the following function to start a process on a remote server:

Function StartRemote { param([string] $computer = $(Read-Host "Computername"), [string] $cmd = $(Read-Host "Commandline")) $remoteProcess = "" | Select-Object ProcessID, ComputerName, ` ReturnValue, ReturnMsg, Cmd $remoteProcess.ComputerName = $computer $remoteProcess.Cmd = $cmd $mc = New-Object System.Management.ManagementClass ` "\\$computer\root\cimv2:Win32_Process" $result = $mc.create($cmd) $remoteProcess.ReturnValue = [int]$result.ReturnValue $remoteProcess.ProcessID = $result.ProcessId switch($remoteProcess.ReturnValue) { 0 { $remoteProcess.ReturnMsg = "OK" } 2 { $remoteProcess.ReturnMsg = "Access denied" } 3 { $remoteProcess.ReturnMsg = "Insufficient privilege" } 8 { $remoteProcess.ReturnMsg = "Unknown failure" } 9 { $remoteProcess.ReturnMsg = "Path not found" } 21 { $remoteProcess.ReturnMsg = "Invalid parameter" } } return $remoteProcess } 

It requires the computername and your commandline as a string, be sure to escape additional quotes, and returns a custom object with info about your process:

PoSH> StartRemote -computer TEST-VM -cmd "gpupdate /force" ProcessID : 6992 ComputerName : TEST-VM ReturnValue : 0 ReturnMsg : OK Cmd : gpupdate /force 

Perhaps you can modify it to allow alternative credentials. Hope this is helpful.

Answer 2

You may want to make sure the same command line works fine in cmd.exe. Powershell has slightly different arguments parsing rules for a command line.