How to connect to remote machine via WinRM in Python (pywinrm) using domain account?

Question

I would like to write a script in Python using pywinrm library to be able to connect to remote machine via WinRM.

import winrm

s = winrm.Session('MACHINEHOST', auth=('username@domain', 'password'))
r = s.run_cmd('ipconfig', ['/all'])

print r.status_code
print r.std_out

Script is working fine when I use local user. When I use domain user, I receive the following exception:

winrm.exceptions.UnauthorizedError: 401 Unauthorized.

As to the WinRM configuration on remote machine:

/Client/Auth/Basic = True
/Client/TrustedHosts = *
/Service/Auth/Basic = True
/Service/AllowUnencrypted = True

Could you advise how to fix this issue?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Pywinrm to connect using domain user account:

In Remote Windows Machine

1. Make sure in the target windows machine the network connection type is "private", if it is "public" winrm would not get configured.

2. Open command prompt and type:

   winrm qc
   winrm set winrm/config/service @{AllowUnencrypted="true"}
   

3. Open Powershell and type:

   enable-psremoting
   set-item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts * # ('*' is for all hosts, you may specify the host you want)
   

In your Python Code

4. In your python script:

   import winrm
   
   host = 'YourWindowsHost'
   domain = 'YourDomain'
   user = 'YourDomainUser'
   password = 'YourPassword'
   
   session = winrm.Session(host, auth=('{}@{}'.format(user,domain), password), transport='ntlm')
   
   result = session.run_cmd('ipconfig', ['/all']) # To run command in cmd
   
   result = session.run_ps('Get-Acl') # To run Powershell block
   

Answer 2

As Steve Barnes said, you user should kerberos to connect using your domain account.

You will first need a kerberos ticket set up for your account. Windows will give this to you automatically, but under linux you will need to kinit. Use klist to see your current and default tickets.

session = winrm.Session(server, auth=('user@DOMAIN', 'doesNotMatterBecauseYouAreUsingAKerbTicket'), transport='kerberos')

I believe your domain account needs to have admin permissions on the windows host.

Also note that in version 0.0.3 of pywinrm you can specify the auth param as:

auth=(None, None)

This is because pywinrm is using your default kerberos ticket.