Comments on: Running PowerShell Scripts As a Scheduled Task

By: Carl Webster

Carl Webster — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 10:57:07 +0000

In reply to René. From Guy Leech: It depends on what account you have set the scheduled task to run as. My daily checks script which uses the PVS cmdlets works fine when set to "Run whether user is logged on or not". That script uses Set-PvsConnection which can take credentials if necessary but hopefully the account you are running the scheduled task as has PVS rights. If scripts like this run but never finish it suggests to me that they are prompting for authentication but as they are running lights out, that authentication prompt never shows and thus never happens - I've seen it with Connect-VIServer with PowerCLI. Regards, Guy

By: René

René — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 09:55:56 +0000

is there a way to make a shedule task with the taskoption “Run whether user is logged on or not”?
I have big problems with the “PVS_Inventory_V5_Signed.ps1”-Script. If i open an powershell with the serviceAccount, the script passed sucessfully. if i try to use the shedule task, the task never ends and i dont see any error. Only the word process is running the hole time.

regards

René

By: Guy Leech

Guy Leech — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 17:42:51 +0000

I use “bypass” in my scheduled task command line because the scope of that is just this invocation and I trust my own scripts (generally!). The unfortunate problem with PowerShell execution policies is that they are relatively easily circumvented. They can be useful to stop accidental execution of a potentially malicious script by a normal user but once you’ve got admin rights execution policies can easily be bypassed.

When I’m setting up XenApp servers, I’ll generally set the policy to Restricted or AllSigned but for the latter you’ll need your own code signing certificate to sign any script you want to run.

I wouldn’t sweat over it – for a non-admin user, unless you’ve got weak permissions or aren’t patched, what’s the worst that can happen? For admin users, as I’ve already said, execution policies are all to easy to circumvent.

By: Carl Webster

Carl Webster — Sat, 10 Mar 2018 14:56:59 +0000

In reply to Rob Ingenthron. You can always run the Signed versions of the scripts. That way, there is nothing to bypass. Webster

By: Rob Ingenthron

Rob Ingenthron — Sat, 10 Mar 2018 07:31:21 +0000

Thanks for the post! You didn’t mention anything about the PowerShell execution settings or signing. I don’t think that you can just run these scripts as scheduled tasks without addressing the execution policy, and that’s an area I don’t fully comprehend. (Everyone here just sets everything to either “bypass” or “unrestricted”.) I just saw your second post on this topic but it just has “bypass”. I hope you can add another post to discuss running these tasks more securely with PowerShell. (Is bypass the best option?)

BTW, I ran across another site that has an interesting post regarding bypassing the execution policy:
https://blog.netspi.com/15-ways-to-bypass-the-powershell-execution-policy/