PowerShell - Remote Commands

You can call PowerShell Commands to be executed on a remote machine with the Invoke-Command.

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$cred = get-credential

Invoke-Command -ComputerName YOUR_SERVER -ScriptBlock {Start-WebAppPool -Name APPPOOL_NAME} -credential $cred

Invoke-Command -ComputerName YOUR_SERVER -ScriptBlock {Stop-WebAppPool -Name APPPOOL_NAME} -credential $cred

The $cred = get-credential asks the user for some credentials via log-in Window and stores them for later usage in the commands. Just replace the server and the appPool names.

Prepare session and configs for double hops

If you have to invoke a command and use certain credentials for a further hop, you have to create a PowerShell Session Configuration on the Remote Computer:

Register-PSSessionConfiguration -Name AdminCredConfig -RunAsCredential 'YOUR_USERNAME' -Force

This command registers the configuration with the wanted credentials for remotely executed commands in the PS session. You can now use this config for preparing the session:

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$Server = 'YOUR_SERVER'
$Username = 'DOMAIN\USERNAME'
$Password = 'PASSWORD'  # Better use secrets, or map this from secrets
$pass = ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText $Password -Force
$SecureString = $pass
$Credential = New-Object -TypeName System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList $Username,$SecureString 

Invoke-Command -ComputerName $Server -Credential $Credential -ConfigurationName AdminCredConfig -ScriptBlock {
    # Do Something on the remote machine
}

This solves the second hob missing privileges f the first approach and lets you access the further remote machines, as long as the used credentials have the proper privileges of course.

Using arguments in the ScriptBlock

You even can use outer variables as arguments in the inner ScriptBlock with $Using:<varname> or $args[0] and a listed -AgrumentList <var1>, <var2> after the ScriptBlock.