How to connect to a remote Windows machine to exec

Question

I am new to Python and I am trying to make a script that connects to a remote windows machine and execute commands there and test ports connectivity.

Here is the code that I am writing but it is not working. Basically, I want to and it returns with the local machine data, not the remote one.

import wmi
import os
import subprocess
import re
import socket, sys

def main():

     host="remotemachine"
     username="adminaam"
     password="passpass!"
     server =connects(host, username, password)
     s = socket.socket()
     s.settimeout(5)
     print server.run_remote('hostname')

class connects:

    def __init__(self, host, username, password, s = socket.socket()):
        self.host=host
        self.username=username
        self.password=password
        self.s=s

        try:
            self.connection= wmi.WMI(self.host, user=self.username, password=self.password)
            self.s.connect(('10.10.10.3', 25))
            print "Connection established"
        except:
            print "Could not connect to machine"


   def run_remote(self, cmd, async=False, minimized=True):
       call=subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True,stderr=subprocess.STDOUT )
       print call

main() 

Answer 1

Maybe you can use SSH to connect to a remote server.

Install freeSSHd on your windows server.

SSH Client connection Code:

import paramiko

hostname = "your-hostname"
username = "your-username"
password = "your-password"
cmd = 'your-command'

try:
    ssh = paramiko.SSHClient()
    ssh.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
    ssh.connect(hostname,username=username,password=password)
    print("Connected to %s" % hostname)
except paramiko.AuthenticationException:
    print("Failed to connect to %s due to wrong username/password" %hostname)
    exit(1)
except Exception as e:
    print(e.message)    
    exit(2)

Execution Command and get feedback:

try:
    stdin, stdout, stderr = ssh.exec_command(cmd)
except Exception as e:
    print(e.message)

err = ''.join(stderr.readlines())
out = ''.join(stdout.readlines())
final_output = str(out)+str(err)
print(final_output)

Answer 2

For connection

c=wmi.WMI('machine name',user='username',password='password')

#this connects to remote system. c is wmi object

for commands

process_id, return_value = c.Win32_Process.Create(CommandLine="cmd.exe /c  <your command>")

#this will execute commands

Answer 3

I don't know WMI but if you want a simple Server/Client, You can use this simple code from tutorialspoint

Server:

import socket               # Import socket module

s = socket.socket()         # Create a socket object
host = socket.gethostname() # Get local machine name
port = 12345                # Reserve a port for your service.
s.bind((host, port))        # Bind to the port

s.listen(5)                 # Now wait for client connection.
while True:
   c, addr = s.accept()     # Establish connection with client.
   print 'Got connection from', addr
   c.send('Thank you for connecting')
   c.close()                # Close the connection 

Client

#!/usr/bin/python           # This is client.py file

import socket               # Import socket module

s = socket.socket()         # Create a socket object
host = socket.gethostname() # Get local machine name
port = 12345                # Reserve a port for your service.

s.connect((host, port))
print s.recv(1024)
s.close                     # Close the socket when done

it also have all the needed information for simple client/server applications.

Just convert the server and use some simple protocol to call a function from python.

P.S: i'm sure there are a lot of better options, it's just a simple one if you want...

Answer 4

You can use pywinrm library instead which is cross-platform compatible.

Here is a simple code example:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import winrm

# Create winrm connection.
sess = winrm.Session('https://10.0.0.1', auth=('username', 'password'), transport='kerberos')
result = sess.run_cmd('ipconfig', ['/all'])

Install library via: pip install pywinrm requests_kerberos.

---

Here is another example from this page to run Powershell script on a remote host:

import winrm

ps_script = """$strComputer = $Host
Clear
$RAM = WmiObject Win32_ComputerSystem
$MB = 1048576

"Installed Memory: " + [int]($RAM.TotalPhysicalMemory /$MB) + " MB" """

s = winrm.Session('windows-host.example.com', auth=('john.smith', 'secret'))
r = s.run_ps(ps_script)
>>> r.status_code
0
>>> r.std_out
Installed Memory: 3840 MB

>>> r.std_err

Answer 5

I have personally found pywinrm library to be very effective. However, it does require some commands to be run on the machine and some other setup before it will work.

Answer 6

do the client machines have python loaded? if so, I'm doing this with psexec

On my local machine, I use subprocess in my .py file to call a command line.

import subprocess
subprocess.call("psexec {server} -c {}") 

the -c copies the file to the server so i can run any executable file (which in your case could be a .bat full of connection tests or your .py file from above).