How to pass parameters to powershell command when interpreting script from standard input

Question

I am running powershell script over ssh as ssh user@host "powershell -Comand - < script.ps1. It works as expected until I start passing arguments.

When I put it as powershell -Command - my args it fails (as documented) '-' was specified with the -Command parameter; no other arguments to -Command are permitted.

While the other way around powershell my args -Command - it fails with:

The term 'my' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file,
 or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included
, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:3
    + my <<<<  args -Command -
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (my:String) [], CommandNotFoundE 
   xception
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

I intend to put in arbitrary list of parameter without any parsing.

Edit:

As I investigate further, it seems I am doing something wrong even when the command is specified explicitly:

(local bash) $ echo '\n' | ssh -i master-key [email protected] '$SYSTEMROOT/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0/powershell' -Command 'Write-Host \$\(\$args.Count\)' "my" "args"
0 my args

It seems that passes no arguments but they are printed on console for some reason. Avoiding the ssh does not seems to change anything:

(cygwin) $ $SYSTEMROOT/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0/powershell -Command 'Write-Host $($args.Count)' "my" "args"
0 my args

I tried to doublequote the args in both variants (both together and separately) and the messages are the same as with the unquoted variants. — Oliver Gondža
– Oliver Gondža, Commented Oct 22, 2015 at 17:49

Oliver Gondža · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-26 10:06:29Z

2

You can't do that directly, but I think this can be done, if you wrap your script in scriptblock and pass arguments to it:

echo "& { $(cat script.ps1) } 'my' 'args'" | ssh user@host "powershell -Command"

Since -Command parameter can't handle multiline strings, there is a way to pass it in (though not via standard input) using Base64 encoded value of -EncodedCommand parameter, but it's ugly:

ssh user@host "powershell -encodedcommand $((echo "& {"; cat script.ps1 ; echo "} 'my' 'args'") |  iconv -f ascii -t utf-16le | base64 -w0 ; echo -e "\n")

edited Oct 26, 2015 at 10:06

Oliver Gondža

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answered Oct 23, 2015 at 0:27

beatcracker

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3 Comments

Oliver Gondža Over a year ago

Great, almost there. It seems to do nothing when my script has multiple lines. Edit: CRLF line endings seems to make no difference.

beatcracker Over a year ago

@OliverGondža Looks like -Command can't handle newlines, see updated answer.

js2010 Over a year ago

Or separate statements with semicolon.

Dmitry · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-08 01:49:10Z

0

This one works as expected:

script=$(cat <<-'SCRIPT'
{ 
    $a=$Args[0];
    $b=$Args[1];
    # Do not enclose $script into "" to avoid this comment spread till the EOL
    Write-Host "This is 'a': $a";
    Write-Host "This is 'b': $b";
} # <- call as [[[ -c "& { $script } ... " ]]] if you ommit braces '{}' here 
SCRIPT
)
a="THE VALUE OF THE \"a\""
b="B B B B"
powershell -nologo -executionpolicy bypass  -c "& $script '$a' '$b'"

output:

> This is 'a': THE VALUE OF THE "a"
> This is 'b': B B B B

answered Oct 8, 2019 at 1:49

Dmitry

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