Achieve Powershell Remote Restart Service in Seconds

Ah Powershell. It’s like a dream come true for IT professionals. With its powerful scripting capabilities it’s no wonder why so many of us rely on it for our daily tasks. But what happens when you need to restart a service remotely? Well don’t worry – Powershell has got you covered! In this blog post we’ll cover the steps you need to take in order to remotely restart a service using Powershell. Let’s get started!

1) Establishing Remote Connectivity

The first step to remotely restart a service using Powershell is to establish the connection between your local machine and the remote machine. To do this we’ll use the Enter-PSSession cmdlet. This cmdlet allows us to establish a remote session with the remote machine which will allow us to run Powershell commands on the remote machine.

2) PowerShell Cmdlets for Restarting Services

Ready to channel your inner tech-wizard and get your hands on some sweet restarting-service-action? Then PowerShell cmdlets are just the ticket! After all nothing says ‘I know what I’m doing’ more than launching some sophisticated kung-fu-like commands from the script-savvy command line! So whether you’re a fish to water in executing shell commands or just want to impress your friends with some slick automation of restarting services let’s dive right into the PowerShell cmdlets you need to become a services-restarting badass.

3) Scheduling a Remote Service to Restart Automatically

They say ‘time is money’ so why not put it to use when it comes to restarting services remotely? You can easily ensure that a service running on a remote computer stays healthy and up-to-date with the help of Powershell.

The real beauty of this method is you can schedule the script to run periodically so that you don’t have to worry about maintenance of your remote services. The script will automagically handle the restart leaving you with more time to enjoy all of that hard earned money!

So how do you set it up? First you’ll need to create a task to run on the remote computer. All you have to do is run the ‘ScheduledTask’ cmdlet and specify the remote computer name.

You’ll also need to set up times for the task to run throughout the day. Use the ‘Start-Date’ and ‘End-Date’ parameters to indicate when you want the command to start and when it should stop running. Then set the ‘Schedule’ parameter to the schedule you’d like the task to run on.

Finally use the ‘Trigger’ parameter to set up the triggers that will tell the task when to start. You can use any number of triggers such as weekly monthly or one-time schedules. Be sure to specify the exact time and date that the task should run.

That’s it! Once you’re done setting everything up you can sit back and relax knowing that the remote services are being restarted automagically saving you time and money in the process.

4) Troubleshooting Remote Restart Issues

Sometimes when it comes to PowerShell remote restart there can be a few hiccups along the way. What do you do if you’ve tried to kickstart your service and it just won’t stay up and running? It’s time to troubleshoot the issue and luckily there are a few strategies you can use to find the culprit.

First make sure your restart command is exact. The slightest typo can throw off the action causing some vexing problems. If you are using the ‘Restart-Service’ command be sure to include ‘-Force’ at the end as this will automatically terminate any open process related to the service that is preventing it from restarting.

Do a search of the process logs to determine the cause of the problem. If the error message ‘Access Denied’ is displayed double-check your authentication levels. Remoting to a remote computer requires the highest possible authentication level so try that if you haven’t already.

Still stuck? Fire up ‘Task Manager’ to see if you can identify any rogue processes that must be terminated before the restart command can work. If you can’t find any try restarting from a first-level account.

Finally if all else fails and your trusty remote restart isn’t cutting it try rebooting the machine in question. It might be the ultimate solution for a particularly tricky problem. The manual restart that’s been put off for the past few weeks – it’s time!

In many cases PowerShell should provide a convenient way to remotely restarts so you can quickly move on to the next task. But if the standard route doesn’t work it’s time to dig in and find the root of the problem. Be sure to include the ‘-Force’ attribute and pinpoint the root cause before initiating the restart. And if all else fails do the old-fashioned reboot – it works like a charm.

Resources

• http://gis.amherstma.gov/data/springnearc2013/session3/mapservices/managingarcgisserver10_1withpython.pdf