Powershell remoting as non-administrator

Question

I'm using ssh to log on to other Windows machines. I'm trying to make a pssession on a localhost. But I cannot do it in normal posh prompt:

$ New-PSSession
New-PSSession : [localhost] Connecting to remote server localhost failed with the
following error message : Access is denied. For more information, see the
about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.
At line:1 char:1
+ New-PSSession
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : OpenError: (System.Manageme....RemoteRunspace:RemoteRunspa
   ce) [New-PSSession], PSRemotingTransportException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : AccessDenied,PSSessionOpenFailed

It seems that I have to be on an elevated posh shell. Is there any way to do this without administrator privileges?

Answer 1

Powershell Remoting has a default PSSessionConfiguration called Microsoft.PowerShell with a SDDL which only allows people with administrative rights to execute remote commands on that machine.

You will need to get in touch with an administrator and have them open that up for you:

PS C:\> Set-PSSessionConfiguration -Name Microsoft.PowerShell -showSecurityDescriptorUI

More info here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powershell/archive/2009/11/23/you-don-t-have-to-be-an-administrator-to-run-remote-powershell-commands.aspx

Don't forget to Enable-PSRemoting along with opening the appropriate ports (5985 HTTP/5986 HTTPS).

Answer 2

Encountered the same issue as OP. Fixed it via an alternate way.

1. Open Local Users & Groups (win+r > lusrmgr.msc)
2. Add the user to Groups > Remote Management Users