So not too long ago I found a way to create a remote profile but there was one problem with it, it was a little sloppy in that it wouldn’t close the sessions. I haven’t found a way for it to close the sessions yet, and I’m not sure I want to. What I have done is get it to manage it’s sessions a little better. Here is the updated script.

function connect ($hname){
    #clean out non-open connections
    gsn | Where-Object {$_.state -ne "Opened"} | rsn
    #Check for Open Sessions

    if($session = gsn | Where-Object {$_.computername -eq $hname})
    {
        Write-Host "Reusing Connection!"
    }
    else
    {   
        Write-Host "Creating New Connection!"
        $session = new-pssession $hname
        icm -session $session -scriptblock{
        ####START REMOTE PROFILE####

            function prompt
            {
                Write-Host $(Get-Date -Format [HH:mm:ss])  -NoNewline -ForegroundColor Blue
                write-host $(get-location) -nonewline -foregroundcolor white
                return ">"
            }
        ####END REMOTE PROFILE####
        }
    }
    enter-pssession $session
}

As you can see there is a section marked Remote profile. I have only created a remote prompt but you can get it to do other things, for example load Quest modules or whatever it is you have in your normal profile.

This has been updated, check out the newer post!

I’ve been trying to find a way to create a profile for when I remote in to servers with winrm, and even though its documented, it doesn’t seem to be possible.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd315384.aspx

"– When you use Enter-PSSession, your user profile on the remote computer is used for the interactive session. The commands in the remote user profile, including commands to add Windows PowerShell snap-ins and to change the command prompt, run before the remote prompt is displayed."

So, apparently they forgot to add a few bits of code… I’ve posted a bug report on this (you should go vote on this) but for the time being, I’ve come up with a fairly simple way around this.

In your profile on your local machine we’re going to create a function called connect which will do this for us. In this example I’ll only modify the prompt, but obviously you can add more in.

function connect ($hname){
    $session = new-pssession $hname
    icm -session $session -scriptblock{
    #remote profile script

        function prompt
        {
            Write-Host $(Get-Date -Format [HH:mm:ss])  -NoNewline -ForegroundColor Blue
            write-host $(get-location) -nonewline -foregroundcolor green
            return ">"
        }

    }
    enter-pssession $session
}

 

This creates the session via New-PSSession and then uses the invoke command to push your profile (that script block) to it and then enters the session for interactive use.

There is one problem with this and that is when you do Enter-PSSession from the prompt, and then Exit-PSSession from the remote session, it closes out the session, when you do it this way, the Exit-PSSession keeps the session open.

To visualize this try this code bit

gsn
etsn $server
Exit
gsn
nsn $server | etsn
exit
gsn

You’ll notice the first gsn (Get-PSSession) returns nothing because the session was closed, the second gsn shows that the session is still open..

I’m going to work on a better Connect function, but for the time being, this will work, just don’t forget the connections are staying open!