PowerShell Hyper-V VM Management Tip

If there is a way that we can manage our VMs from the hyper-visor level, like invoke command from HOST directly to VM, that would be awesome!!!!

However, the method is only available from Windows 10/Server 2016 called: PowerShell Direct

For the current users who is running on Windows Server 2012 & Windows Server 2012R2, we can use following trick to get it work. We will following resource to get this done:

• An AD account with enough permission
• Hyper-V admin
• Run Administration PowerShell script from the Hyper-V host

Login the VM:

• Open up Schedule Task, create a new task by using the previous AD Account
• Run this task every 5 mins <- Can be any time interval you want.
• Action: run a PowerShell script “C:\Script\ScheduledPowerShellCaller.ps1” to call another script (Script content will be provided later)
• Program File: C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe
• Argument: -File C:\scripts\ScheduledPowerShellCaller.ps1

ScheduledPowerShellCaller.ps1:

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$RemoteCMDPath = "C:\scripts\RemoteCMD.ps1"
if(Test-Path $RemoteCMDPath)
{
    . $RemoteCMDPath
    Remove-Item $RemoteCMDPath
}

The way to call it:

• Create a new script: RemoteCMD.ps1
• New-Item -Path C:\testfolder$((Get-Date).ToString(“HHmmss”)) -ItemType Directory
• Copy the file into VM by using Copy-VMFile:

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Copy-VMFile -VM $VM -SourcePath C:\Scripts\RemoteCMD.ps1 -DestinationPath C:\Scripts\RemoteCMD.ps1 -FileSource Host

Check the VM’s C Drive see the change in 5 mins. New folder is created automatically, and the RemoteCMD.ps1 is gone to prevent it’s running again :)