Python subprocess on remote MS Windows host

Question

I'm trying to run netsh command on remote windows hosts (windows domain environment with admin rights). The following code works fine on local host but I would like to run it on remote hosts as well using python.

import subprocess

netshcmd=subprocess.Popen('netsh advfirewall show rule name=\”all\”', shell=True, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE )
output, errors =  netshcmd.communicate()

The problem is that I'm no sure how/what method to use to initiate the connection to remote hosts and then run the subprocess commands. I cannot use ssh or pstools and would like try to implement it using existing pywin32 modules if possible.

I have used WMI module in a past which makes it very easy to query remote host but I couldn't find any way to query firewall policies over WMI and that's why using subprocess.

See the second answer to [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/861148/how-can-i-remotely-execute-a-script-in-windows) — Roland Smith, Apr 15 '13 at 13:41

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

1

First you login the remote host machine using of pxssh modules Python: How can remote from my local pc to remoteA to remoteb to remote c using Paramiko

remote login of windows:

child = pexpect.spawn('ssh tiger@172.16.0.190 -p 8888')
child.logfile = open("/tmp/mylog", "w")
print child.before
child.expect('.*Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?')
child.sendline("yes")

child.expect(".*assword:")
child.sendline("tiger\r")
child.expect('Press any key to continue...')
child.send('\r')
child.expect('C:\Users\.*>')
child.sendline('dir')
child.prompt('C:\Users\.*>')

Python - Pxssh - Getting an password refused error when trying to login to a remote server

and send your netsh command

edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

Community

1
1

answered Apr 15 '13 at 12:23

Reegan Miranda

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Reegan thanks for your reply but I'm not sure how this is going to work in MS Windows environment. psexpect seems to work using ssh but as I stated earlier using ssh is not optional and all authentication must work using normal windows domain authentications methods. I have written other scripts in a past to manage Windows boxes and below examples of lines used to connect to remote host and was hoping there was something I could use under pywin32 modules. c = wmi.WMI(hostname) or c = win32evtlog.OpenEventLog(hostname,logtype) . – Ray Apr 15 '13 at 13:52

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 20 '15 at 08:25

I will recommend using Fabric, it's a powerful python tool with a suite of operations for executing local or remote shell commands, as well as auxiliary functionality such as prompting the running user for input, or aborting execution:

install fabric : pip install fabric
write the following script named remote_cmd.py:

"""
Usage:
    python remote_cmd.py ip_address username password your_command
"""

from sys import argv
from fabric.api import run, env


def set_host_config(ip, user, password):
    env.host_string = ip
    env.user = user
    env.password = password

def cmd(your_command):
    """
    executes command remotely
    """
    output = run(your_command)
    return output


def main():
    set_host_config(argv[1], argv[2], argv[3])
    cmd(argv[4]))

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Usage:

python remote_cmd.py ip_address username password command

Python subprocess on remote MS Windows host

2 Answers2