Skip to main content

Enable PowerShell V2 Remote Management via Group Policy

By

One of PowerShell V2’s strongest assets is its remote management capability.  When you enable remote management, a few actions are taken.

 

  • Enables the WinRM service
  • Starts the WinRM service.
  • Set’s the WinRM Service to start automaticlly.
  • A modification is made to the Windows Firewall to permit incoming WinRM connections.  (Outgoing connections are allowed by default.)
  • Windows PowerShell is registered as a WinRM endpoint.  Both the 32 and 64 bit versions are registered.  This allows the WinRM service to be able to send and received back commands and information to applications on your remote clients.
  • You will be prompted (if manually doing this) to confirm your decision.  This is because this action has an impact level of “high".

 

You can manually enable PowerShell Remoting by opening a PowerShell session with local administrative rights and entering the cmdlet Enable-PSRemoting.  You will be prompted to confirm your choice and the cmdlet will execute the necessary actions.  You can see a screen shot below.

image

 

 

This requires you to visit each client that you want to run PowerShell remoting on.  The easier and more effective way of doing this in the enterprise with Group Policy.

 

Open up Group Policy Management.

Expand your Forest / Domains / DomainName

Right Click Group Policy Object and click New.

Provide a name for this GPO. For this demonstration, I named mine PSRemoteSetup.

Right click your GPO and click Edit.

Expand Computer Configuration / Policies / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Remote Management (WinRM) / WinRM Service.

Open Allow automatic configuration of listeners
- Set this policy to Enable
- Enter * in IPv4 filter:
- Enter * in IPv6 filter:
- Click OK

Expand Computer Configuration / Policies / Windows Settings / Security Settings / Windows Firewall with Advanced Security / Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
- Right click Inbound Rules and select New Rule.
- Select Predefined.
- In the drop down box, select Windows Remote Management
- Click Next
- Check only Windows Remote Management (HTTP-In)
- Click Next.
- Select Allow the connection.
- Click Finish

If this policy is going to be applied to only Windows Server 2008 servers, exit Group Policy Management Editor.  If this policy is going to be applied to Windows Vista or Windows 7 clients, we need to enable one more Group Policy.

Expand Computer Configuration / Policies / Windows Settings / Security Settings / System Services

Double click Windows Remote Management (WS-Management)

Check Define this policy setting

Select Automatic

Click OK

Exit Group Policy Management Editor.

 

Now link this GPO to the OUs that contain the computer objects that you want to remotely manage with PowerShell.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to list all the AD LDS instances on a server

By
AD LDS allows you to provide directory services to applications that are free of the confines of Active Directory.  To list all the AD LDS instances on a server, follow this procedure: Log into the server in question Open a command prompt. Type dsdbutil and press Enter Type List Instances and press Enter . You will receive a list of the instance name, both the LDAP and SSL port numbers, the location of the database, and its status.
Post a Comment
Read more

How to run GPResult on a remote client with PowerShell

By
In the past, to run the GPResult command, you would need to either physically visit this client, have the user do it, or use and RDP connection.  In all cases, this will disrupt the user.  First, you need PowerShell remoting enabled on the target machine.  You can do this via Group Policy . Open PowerShell and type this command. Invoke-Command –ScriptBlock {GPResult /r} –ComputerName <ComputerName> Replace <ComputerName> with the name of the target.  Remember, the target needs to be online and accessible to you.
Post a Comment
Read more

Error icon when creating a GPO Preference drive map

By
You may not have an error at all.  Take a look at the drive mapping below. The red triangle is what threw us off.  It is not an error.  It is simply a color representation of the Replace option of the Action field in the properties of the drive mappings. Create action This give you a green triangle. The Create action creates a new mapped drive for users. Replace Action The Replace action gives you a red triangle.  This action will delete and recreate mapped drives for users. The net result of the Replace action is to overwrite all existing settings associated with the mapped drive. If the drive mapping does not exist, then the Replace action creates a new drive mapping. Update Action The Update action will have a yellow triangle. Update will modify settings of an existing mapped drive for users. This action differs from Replace in that it only updates settings defined within the preference item. All other settings remain as configured on the mapped drive. If the
1 comment
Read more