Processing a PowerShell SecureString as a parameter or console entry

Question

I'm having a lot of difficulty with a PowerShell script that I'm trying to call a DirectoryServices query from. Currently, if I do a

$password = read-host "Password" -asSecureString

and subsequently

$credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential $username,$password

everything works fine. However if I try to pass the string parameter with a param($password) and then convert it to a secure string with this code:

$password = ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force $password

After extensive debugging I can see this is working fine in terms of converting the string to a securestring, but I get a bad user/password from DirectoryServices when I use the parameter. Everything works fine when read from the console. Any ideas on what I can do to accept a parameter OR take console input in the absence of a parameter?

This is what I was hoping would work, but doesn't:

if($password -eq $null) { $password = read-host "Password" -asSecureString } else { $password = ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force $password } $credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential $username,$password

huh? You enter password, create securestring, create credentials and extract password? why? the password doesn't change.. — Frode F.
– Frode F., Commented Dec 21, 2012 at 19:57
Sorry, that last line you're referring to should be omitted/commented out, it was for debugging purposes. — jackwmc4
– jackwmc4, Commented Dec 21, 2012 at 22:06
After some further debugging, it appears its not even a securestring issue - for some reason directory services won't take the string when it comes from the param, but it does when its prompted. Still unsure whats going on. — jackwmc4
– jackwmc4, Commented Dec 21, 2012 at 22:11
Can you post the directoryservices code that is not working, and the error message you're getting? — latkin
– latkin, Commented Dec 21, 2012 at 23:45
Look at my answer to this SO question: stackoverflow.com/questions/13994841/powershell-smtp-send It shows how to dump the contents of the secure string you get back from Read-Host -AsSecureString. There are some funnies with Read-Host like if you remove the -AsSecureString and type in !foo<enter> at the prompt, Read-Host will complain. — Keith Hill
– Keith Hill, Commented Dec 22, 2012 at 5:57

henrycarteruk · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-20 14:03:51Z

I recently created a script and was running into the same issue. The work around I found in my case was the following:

#Prompts for the username/password, enter the username in the form of DomainName\UserName $Credential = get-credential #Converts the password to clear text to pass it through correctly as passing through a secure string does not work. $Password = $credential.GetNetworkCredential().password #Converts the $Credential to just the DomainName/UsernName. $Account = $credential.UserName

Hopefully this will work in your situation

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