Setting up non-administrative control of Hyper-V through PowerShell

A long time ago I talked about how to configure Hyper-V to allow a non-administrative user to control all of Hyper-V. As a security conscious user I never use an administrative account – unless it is absolutely critical.  But lately I have been getting annoyed by the need to follow the manual process documented above to configure this.

This weekend I finally sat down and put together a PowerShell script to do this for me:

 # Get current users account information
 $myWindowsID=[System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()
 $myWindowsPrincipal=new-object System.Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal($myWindowsID)
  
 # Get the security principal for the Administrator role
 $adminRole=[System.Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole]::Administrator
  
 # Check to see if we are currently running "as Administrator"
 if ($myWindowsPrincipal.IsInRole($adminRole))
    {
    # We are running "as Administrator" - so change the title and background color to indicate this
    $Host.UI.RawUI.WindowTitle = $myInvocation.MyCommand.Definition + "(Elevated)"
    $Host.UI.RawUI.BackgroundColor = "DarkBlue"
    clear-host
    }
 else
    {
    # We are not running "as Administrator" - so relaunch as administrator
    
    # Create a new process object that starts PowerShell
    $newProcess = new-object System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo "PowerShell";
    
    # Specify the current script path and name as a parameter
    $newProcess.Arguments = $myInvocation.MyCommand.Definition;
    
    # Indicate that the process should be elevated
    $newProcess.Verb = "runas";
    
    # Start the new process
    [System.Diagnostics.Process]::Start($newProcess);
    
    # Exit from the current, unelevated, process
    exit
    }
  
 # Get the current AzMan store location from the registry
 $AzManStoreLocation = (Get-ItemProperty -path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Virtualization").StoreLocation
  
 # Open the AzMan store
 $AzManStore = new-object -ComObject "AzRoles.AzAuthorizationStore"
 $AzManStore.Initialize(2, $AzManStoreLocation)
  
 # Handle the default Hyper-V AzMan store and the SCVMM AzMan store
 if (@($AzManStore.Applications | ? {$_.Name -contains "Hyper-V services"}).count -eq 1)
    {
    $HyperVAzManStore = $AzManStore.OpenApplication("Hyper-V services")
    }
 elseif (@($AzManStore.Applications | ? {$_.Name -contains "Virtual Machine Manager"}).count -eq 1)
    {
    $HyperVAzManStore = $AzManStore.OpenApplication("Virtual Machine Manager")
    }
 else
    {
    Write-Host "Unable to find AzMan application group."
    Write-Host -NoNewLine "Press any key to continue..."
    $null = $Host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")
    exit
    }
  
 # Get the administrator role from the Hyper-V service in the AzMan store
 $HyperVAdministratorsRole = $HyperVAzManStore.OpenRoleAssignment("Administrator")
  
 # Check to see if the current user is in the Hyper-V administrator role
 if (@($HyperVAdministratorsRole.Members | ? {$_ -contains $myWindowsID.User.Value}).count -eq 0)
    {
    # If no - add the user and submit the changes
    $HyperVAdministratorsRole.AddMember($myWindowsID.User.Value)
    $HyperVAdministratorsRole.Submit()
    }
 Else
    {
    # If yes - inform the user that they are already a Hyper-V administrator
    Write-host $myWindowsID.Name "is already part of the Hyper-V administrators role assignment"
    Write-Host -NoNewLine "Press any key to continue..."
    $null = $Host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")
    }

Some key things to note about this script:

• It must run as administrator – and will elevate itself if you run it without administrative privilege.
• It will automatically add the current user as a Hyper-V administrator.  If you want to add different users you will need to change the script.
• This script talks to AzMan COM objects – which means that it cannot be run remotely, and must be run directly on the Hyper-V server.
• This script will handle the default Hyper-V and SCVMM authorization configurations – but if you run the script on a standalone Hyper-V server, which you later use SCVMM to manage – you will need to run the script again.

Cheers,
Ben

AzMan.zip

Comments

• Anonymous
  May 21, 2011
  Hi, would you be so kind to advice me. I have installed W2008R2 std server Core, with Hyper-V role(I need to create VM wiht termninal server), I ran script to enable HV mgmt-hvremote. But I cannot connect through HV mamag. console to server. RDP works fine. Client is W7 pro. What should I do? How can I create VM on that R2 server? Thank you.