Running as a Service Account

Application Service Account

The following permissions are not required if you are running PowerShell Universal 3.9.10 or 4.0.4 or later.

The PowerShell Universal application can be run as a Service Account. This means that the application will run all of its functions as the service account, including local application tasks, jobs (by default), and dashboards. This is a suggested configuration and is REQUIRED to execute jobs as other PSCredentials defined in Secret Variables.

To run Universal Automation as a Service Account, and not the local system account, an additional set of permissions are required for the Service Account. Windows requires a distinct set of permissions for the Service Account if it is not in the local Administrators group on the host.

If you are hosting PowerShell Universal in Internet Information Services (IIS) - these permissions ALSO are required for the Application Pool Identity account.

You can manually assign the required permissions in the "Local Security Policy" snap-in located here: Control Panel/ Administrative Tools / Local Security Policy / Local Policies / User Rights Assignment.

Add the User or Group to the following Rights to ensure PowerShell Universal Functionality:

  • Log on as a service

  • Adjust memory quotas for a process

  • replace a process level token

Health Checks require the following group membership in order to collect information about the PSU system.

  • Performance Monitor Users

  • Performance Log Users

Script Run As Requirements

By using Secret Variables, you can save PSCredentials that can be used to execute scripts as a service account. These service accounts require a specific set of Windows permissions in order to execute jobs properly.

The service account you wish to use must have the "Log on as batch job" rights on the Windows host. Administrators on the machine have this by default, so if the service account is NOT an Administrator, you must ensure the account has the permission configured.

You can manually assign this permission in the "Local Security Policy" snap-in located here: Control Panel/ Administrative Tools / Local Security Policy / Local Policies / User Rights Assignment.

Add the User or Group to the "Log on as a batch job properties" members to allow the account to properly execute script jobs in PowerShell Universal:

Please consider that some of these settings may already be managed by Group Policy Object (GPO) definitions. This may cause these settings to be overwritten or unable to be applied.

Configuring a PowerShell Universal Service to run as the account

Once you have configured the service account to use with PowerShell Universal, you will need to configure the PowerShell Universal Service to use that account.

Open the Services snapin by executing services.msc . Find the PowerShell Universal service and right click it and then click Properties. Click the Log On tab and enter the credentials for the service account.

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