powershellpowershell-remoting

Using PowerShell credentials without being prompted for a password


I'd like to restart a remote computer that belongs to a domain. I have an administrator account but I don't know how to use it from powershell.

I know that there is a Restart-Computer cmdlet and that I can pass credential but if my domain is for instance mydomain, my username is myuser and my password is mypassword what's the right syntax to use it?

I need to schedule the reboot so I don't have to type the password.


Solution

  • The problem with Get-Credential is that it will always prompt for a password. There is a way around this however but it involves storing the password as a secure string on the filesystem.

    The following article explains how this works:

    Using PSCredentials without a prompt

    In summary, you create a file to store your password (as an encrypted string). The following line will prompt for a password then store it in c:\mysecurestring.txt as an encrypted string. You only need to do this once:

    read-host -assecurestring | convertfrom-securestring | out-file C:\mysecurestring.txt
    

    Wherever you see a -Credential argument on a PowerShell command then it means you can pass a PSCredential. So in your case:

    $username = "domain01\admin01"
    $password = Get-Content 'C:\mysecurestring.txt' | ConvertTo-SecureString
    $cred = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential `
             -argumentlist $username, $password
    
    $serverNameOrIp = "192.168.1.1"
    Restart-Computer -ComputerName $serverNameOrIp `
                     -Authentication default `
                     -Credential $cred
                     <any other parameters relevant to you>
    

    You may need a different -Authentication switch value because I don't know your environment.