Using Remove-Item with Credentials

Question

I am attempting to use the Remove-Item cmdlet as part of an automation for a system. The files are stored on a server that requires elevated rights to perform the file deletion. I have access to a domain admin account that I use for such automation scripts.

The code below will build the PSCredential object:

$password = New-Object System.Security.SecureString
"passwordhere".ToCharArray() | ForEach-Object { $password.AppendChar($_) }
$cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential("domain\username",$password)
$cred

I am passing this object to the following action:

Remove-Item -LiteralPath $path -Force -Credential $cred

Any ideas?

Answer 1

It's not clear to me if the files are local (you're running the script on the server) or remote (on another machine). If local try running the command using a background job and pass in the credentials to Start-Job:

$job = Start-Job { Remove-Item -LiteralPath $path -force } -cred $cred 
Wait-Job $job
Receive-Job $job

If they're remote, try using remoting:

Invoke-Command -computername servername `
               -scriptblock { Remove-Item -LiteralPath $path -force } `
               -Cred $cred

Note: This requires that you execute Enable-PSRemoting on the remote machine.

In general, putting raw passwords in your script isn't a great idea. You can store the password in an encrypted manner using DPAPI and later, only that user account can decrypt the password e.g.:

# Stick password into DPAPI storage once - accessible only by current user 
Add-Type -assembly System.Security 
$passwordBytes = [System.Text.Encoding]::Unicode.GetBytes("Open Sesame") 
$entropy = [byte[]](1,2,3,4,5) 
$encrytpedData = [System.Security.Cryptography.ProtectedData]::Protect( ` 
                       $passwordBytes, $entropy, 'CurrentUser') 
$encrytpedData | Set-Content -enc byte .\password.bin 

# Retrieve and decrypted password 
$encrytpedData = Get-Content -enc byte .\password.bin 
$unencrytpedData = [System.Security.Cryptography.ProtectedData]::Unprotect( ` 
                       $encrytpedData, $entropy, 'CurrentUser') 
$password = [System.Text.Encoding]::Unicode.GetString($unencrytpedData) 
$password 

Answer 2

Remove-Item can fail due to authorisation. Alternatively, either find the reference for each file and hit it with a .Delete() or move all of the files to the recycle bin.

foreach ($svr in $computers) 
{
    Invoke-Command -ComputerName $svr { 

    $folderitems = Get-ChildItem $cachefolder -Recurse

    # Method 1: .Delete
    foreach ($cachefolderitem in $cachefolderitems)
    {
        if ($cachefolderitem -like "*.ini")
        {
            $cachefolderitem.Delete()
        }
    }

   # Method 2: Move all matching files to the recycle bin
   Move-Item "$cachefolder\*.ini" 'C:\$Recycle.Bin' -Force 
}