Invoke Generate Self Signed Certificate

PowerShell Help
1

Good Morning,

I am very new to Powershell and scripting in general. I thought I would try to make a small script to invoke the New-SelfsignedCertificate Cmdlet on a remote server or servers. (The makecert tool gets a little tedious when you have to use it often.) Here is my script.

Param (
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]
    [string]$computername,
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]
    [string]$CertStoreLocation,
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]
    [string]$dnsname
    
    )


$Params = @{
    "CertStoreLocation"=$CertStoreLocation
    "DNSname"=$dnsname
    
}

Invoke-command $computername New-SelfSignedCertificate @Params

So when I run the script locally with the invoke-command cmdlet commented out, I can give the certstorelocation parameter “cert:\localmachine\my” and it works beautifully.

When I try to invoke on a remote computer I get.

Invoke-Command : A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name ‘CertStoreLocation’.
At C:\Users\jason.garner\Google Drive\Scripts\GenerateSSL.ps1:18 char:56

  • Invoke-command $computername New-SelfSignedCertificate @Params 
  •                                                    ~~~~~~~
    • CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (:slight_smile: [Invoke-Command], ParameterBindingExcepti
      on
    • FullyQualifiedErrorId : NamedParameterNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.InvokeCom
      mandCommand

I figure its probably something dumb that I am not getting.

Thank you for your time.

2

When you use Invoke-Command you’re asking the remote computer to launch PowerShell and run the cmdlet(s) you’re sending. The variables that you have set only exist in the local instance of PowerShell so the remote machine doesn’t know about them.

In PowerShell 3 and newer you can use $using to pass through local variables to the remote computer. I’m not sure if it supports splatting though so I’ve broken those out.

See about_Remote_Variables for more information.

Invoke-command $computername -scriptBlock {New-SelfSignedCertificate -CertStoreLocation $using:CertStoreLocation -DNSname $using:dnsname}
3

YES!!! It works! Man that’s so easy, I can make certificates 1 handed!

Now for world domination!!!

Thank you Matt!