I'm attempting to run a powershell script from node. Here is my current code:
try {
var spawn = require("child_process").spawn,child;
child = spawn("powershell.exe", ['-file', "..\\build.ps1", "-devmode"])
child.stdout.on("data",function(data){
//console.log("Powershell Data: " + data);
});
child.stderr.on("data",function(data){
console.log("Powershell Errors: " + data);
});
child.on("exit",function(){
console.log("Powershell Script finished");
});
child.stdin.end(); //end input
} catch (error) {
console.error(error);
}
The code is based on this question. When I run it, I get the following error:
Powershell Errors: File C:\<path>\build.ps1 cannot be loaded because running scripts is disabled on this system. For more information,
see about_Execution_Policies at https:/go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=135170.
+ CategoryInfo : SecurityError: (:) [], ParentContainsErrorRecordException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : UnauthorizedAccess
I have tried setting the execution policy Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Undefined -Scope LocalMachine
and I also tried just bypassing it when calling the script, like this:
child = spawn("powershell.exe", ['-ExecutionPolicy ByPass', '-file', "..\\build.ps1", "-devmode"])
This just resulted in The term '-ExecutionPolicy' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program.
So how can I execute this script from node without execution policy errors?
When you're using the Windows PowerShell CLI (powershell.exe
) with the -File
parameter to directly invoke a .ps1
script file, using the -ExecutionPolicy
CLI parameter is indeed the only effective way to override the script-file execution policy in effect ad hoc, for the given process only: -ExecutionPolicy Bypass
is equivalent to calling Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force
from inside a PowerShell session.
However, to do so from a spawn
call, each argument - irrespective of whether it represent a parameter name or value - must be passed as its own array element:
spawn("powershell.exe", ['-ExecutionPolicy', 'ByPass', '-file', "..\\build.ps1", "-devmode"])
As for what you tried:
In your attempt, spawn
of necessity encloses '-ExecutionPolicy Bypass'
in "..."
on the resulting command line (on Windows), given that it contains spaces.
When powershell.exe
parses the resulting command line, it does not recognize "-ExecutionPolicy Bypass"
as an attempt to pass the -ExecutionPolicy
parameter with a value; in fact, it doesn't recognize this argument as a CLI parameter at all, and therefore defaults to treating it as PowerShell source code - i.e. as if it had been passed to the default CLI parameter, -Command
(-c
).
That is, in effect your attempt was tantamount to submitting -ExecutionPolicy Bypass ...
as a command from inside a PowerShell session, which results in the error you saw.