The functionality of remote command execution in PowerShell is called PowerShell Remoting (appeared in PowerShell 2.0) and is based on the capabilities of the Web Services for Management protocol (WS-Management). With PowerShell Remoting, you can run commands on one or several remote computers. You can use the interactive session mode with remote computers, temporary or permanent connection. In this article, we will take a look at several examples of using PowerShell to run script on remote computer.
To connect to a computer remotely via PowerShell, the WinRM (Windows Remote Management service) must be enabled and configured on it (it is disabled by default). Communication between computers is performed over HTTP or HTTPS protocols, and all network traffic between computers is encrypted. You can use NTLM and Kerberos to authenticate on a remote computer.
To check the status of the WinRM service, run the following command:
get-service winrm
As you can see, the WS-Management service is running.
To interactively connect to a remote Server1 computer via PowerShell, run the following command:
Enter-PSSession Server1
The PoSh CLI view will change. At the beginning of the line there will be present the name of the remote computer to which you are connected via WinRM. After the session is established, all commands that are being entered in the PowerShell console are executed on the remote computer. PS Remoting works as follows: the commands entered on the local computer are transmitted to the remote computer and are executed there, then the result is transmitted back. Since all commands are executed locally, there is no need to worry about compatibility with PoSh version and modules.
To end an interactive session run the command:
Exit-PSSession
Only the simple remote control tasks are typically performed on computers in the interactive mode. To run a complex command or run the PowerShell script remotely, use should the Invoke-Command cmdlet.
The following command will create a remote connection with the computer Server1 and run the block of commands specified in the ScriptBlock parameter. After that, the remote session will automatically close.
Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock {Restart-Service spooler} -ComputerName server1
You can run the task in the background by running Invoke-Command with the -AsJob parameter. But in this case, the command will not return the result to the PoSh console. To obtain background job information, use the Receive-Job cmdlet.
PowerShell allows you to run local PS1 scripts on remote computers. The idea is that you store all PowerShell instructions in a local .PS1 file on your computer. To do this, use the -FilePath parameter in the Invoke-Command cmdlet instead of -ScriptBlock. For example, to run the c:\ps\tune.ps1 script on three remote servers, you can use the following command:
Invoke-Command -FilePath c:\ps\tune.ps1 -ComputerName server1,server2,server3
The main advantage of this way of running PowerShell scripts is that you don’t need to copy the script file to remote computers. You can use not only the local script, but also the PS script in a network shared folder that can be accessed from the local computer.
You can save the list of computers in a text file and remotely execute the PS script on all computers:
Invoke-command -comp (get-content c:\ps\servers.txt) -filepath c:\ps\tune.ps1
By default, it sends the PS1 script to 32 remote computers from the list at the same time. If there are more than 32 computers, then PoSh monitors the execution status of the script on the first 32 computers, and if the script is completed, the command is executed on the next computer. With the ThrottleLimit parameter, you can increase this limit, but be careful not to overload your network.
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