Run Command as administrator in PowerShell script. UAC

Tim picture Tim · Feb 11, 2010 · Viewed 45.2k times · Source

OK here is my issue:

I am trying to run a script remotely on a server.

I am an administrator on both boxes, firewall exceptions are in place, remote admin is enabled, and everything else looks good that i can see.

invoke-command -ComputerName $ComputerName -ScriptBlock `
{
    cd C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\; 
    ./appcmd.exe ADD vdir /app.name:<SiteName>/ /path:/<VDir Name> /physicalPath:<Path to files>
}

I keep getting the following error in return

ERROR ( hresult:80070005, message:Failed to commit configuration changes. Access is denied.

The server it is trying to run on is a server 2k8 R2 box and I am thinking the issue is a UAC problem. Is there anyway to get this to run as administrator without having to click yes on a UAC box?

This piece of code will eventually become a script that will have to be completely automated.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer

Tim picture Tim · Feb 13, 2010

OK. After some research and testing I figured out the issue. After disabling UAC and the firewall and the script still not working I dug a little deeper and discovered that the main issue was the way invoke-command runs the commands. it uses the credentials of the person running the script to authenticate to the server then tries to use another account to run the permissions or lowers the privileges of the user so that certain commands cannot be run.

I added the -Credentials switch to the invoke command and everything is working great now. Corrected code sample below:

$user = New-Object Management.Automation.PSCredential("$UserName", $securePassword)
invoke-command -ComputerName $ComputerName -Credential $user -ScriptBlock ` 
{ 
    cd C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\;  
    ./appcmd.exe ADD vdir /app.name:<SiteName>/ /path:/<VDir Name> /physicalPath:<Path to files> 
}