Remoting

PowerShell · Reference cheat sheet

📋 Overview

PowerShell Remoting runs commands on remote machines over WinRM (classic) or SSH (PowerShell 7+). Use Enter-PSSession for interactive work and Invoke-Command for one-shot or fan-out automation. Always consider authentication, double-hop limits, and serialization.

🔧 Core concepts

CredSSP / JEA / Just Enough Admin address delegation and least privilege. Objects returned are often deserialized (methods removed).

💡 Examples

Invoke on many hosts:

$servers = 'web1', 'web2'
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $servers -ScriptBlock {
  Get-Service sshd -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
    Select-Object Name, Status
}

Persistent session:

$s = New-PSSession -ComputerName web1 -Credential (Get-Credential)
Invoke-Command -Session $s -ScriptBlock { $env:COMPUTERNAME }
Copy-Item -Path .\app.zip -Destination C:\Temp\ -ToSession $s
Remove-PSSession $s

SSH (PS 7+):

Enter-PSSession -HostName ada@linux1 -SSHTransport

⚠️ Pitfalls

• Second hop: remote session can’t use your creds for a third machine without CredSSP/Kerberos delegation.
• Deserialized objects lack methods—rehydrate or rematerialize on the remote side.
• Firewall / WinRM service must allow connections; HTTPS listeners for untrusted networks.
• Large fan-out: throttle with sessions and error aggregation (-ThrottleLimit).
• Don’t embed plain passwords; use Get-Credential, SecretManagement, or managed identities.
• Linux remoting needs SSH configured; WinRM is Windows-centric.

🔗 Related

• jobs.md
• objects.md
• error_handling.md
• scripting.md
• useful_commands.md