29.7 Program: Remotely Enable PowerShell Remoting

Although not required for Windows Server by default, you may sometimes need to remotely enable PowerShell Remoting. Unfortunately, most machines are not configured to support remote task management. Most are, however, configured to support WMI connections. As a bootstrapping step, we can use the Create() method of the Win32_Process class to launch an instance of PowerShell, and then provide PowerShell with the commands to enable PowerShell Remoting.

The script shown in Example 29-1 automates this cumbersome process.

Example 29-1. Enable-RemotePSRemoting.ps1

##############################################################################
##
## Enable-RemotePsRemoting
##
## From PowerShell Cookbook (O'Reilly)
## by Lee Holmes (http://www.leeholmes.com/guide)
##
##############################################################################

<#

.SYNOPSIS

Enables PowerShell Remoting on a remote computer. Requires that the machine
responds to WMI requests, and that its operating system is Windows Vista or
later.

.EXAMPLE

PS > Enable-RemotePsRemoting <Computer>

#>

param(
    ## The computer on which to enable remoting
    $Computername,

    [Switch] $SkipNetworkProfileCheck,

    ## The credential to use when connecting
    [PSCredential] $Credential
)

Set-StrictMode -Version 3

$VerbosePreference = "Continue"

Write-Verbose "Configuring $computername"
$skipNetworkProfileCheckFlag = '$' + $SkipNetworkProfileCheck.IsPresent
$command = "powershell -NoProfile -Command" +
    "Enable-PSRemoting -SkipNetworkProfileCheck:$skipNetworkProfileCheckFlag -Force"

if($Credential)
{
    $null = Invoke-WmiMethod -Computer $computername -Credential $credential `
        Win32_Process Create -Args $command

    Start-Sleep -Seconds 10

    Write-Verbose "Testing connection"
    Invoke-Command $computername {
        Get-WmiObject Win32_ComputerSystem } -Credential $credential
}
else {
    $null = Invoke-WmiMethod -Computer $computername Win32_Process Create -Args $command
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 10

    Write-Verbose "Testing connection"
    Invoke-Command $computername { Get-WmiObject Win32_ComputerSystem }
}

For more information about running scripts, see Recipe 1.2.

29.7 Program: Remotely Enable PowerShell Remoting

Example 29-1. Enable-RemotePSRemoting.ps1

See Also