QuickBlog: PowerShell Automating your Credentials

Back in January, I did a quick blog about “Use PowerShell to submit SQLServicePack job to multiple Server“, in that script I have PowerShell to always prompt me for credentials.  But, after a while of typing over and over my password, I found to way to automate my credentials.   Yes!  By automating the credential step, I just could schedule the job, and have time to work with something else.

In this example, I’m passing my credential to the “Start-Transfer” command, so I can do my file download to my destination folder.  Here’s the code snippet to accomplish the automation:

[sourcecode language=”powershell”]
## – Automate to create your credential:
$MyUserName = "Domain\Username";
$MyPassword =  ConvertTo-SecureString ‘MyPwd001!’ -asplaintext -force;
$MyCredentials = new-object `
-typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential `
-argumentlist $MyUserName,$MyPassword;

## – Import the module and start the download process of one file:
Import-Module BitsTransfer;
Start-BitsTransfer `
-Credential $MyCredentials `
-Source ‘http://YoufilesSite/Files/Demo01.zip’ `
-Destination ‘\\YourServer\NetworkSharedFolder\Demo01.zip’;
[/sourcecode]

Ha!  I know what you’re think!  I’m hardcoding my password in the scripts.  So, our possible options would be: 1) you’re the only one running this script (don’t tell your boss),  2) You trust your Network security (humm!), or 3) find the way to encrypt the script so no one can guess the password.

There are products like SAPIEN’s PrimalScript and PrimalForms, that will let you create an executable out of your script, and then you can deploy it to your server.  But, then again, only you can make that decision.  I’m just showing that’s possible in case you need it.

Have fun with PowerShell!