stop or start a service on remote machine

Question

I created a script that will start or stop a service based on it\'s display name. My script works on the local machine but I would like to make sure that it can be done on a

Answer 1

Assuming that you have not disabled PowerShell remoting, the easiest way to do it is to wrap it in a function with ComputerName as an optional parameter, and then use Invoke-Command and splat PSBoundParameters.

Function Toggle-Service{
[cmdletbinding()]
Param([string[]]$ComputerName)
$serviceName = Read-Host -Prompt 'Please enter service name: '

# Check that service name exists
If (Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock {Get-Service $serviceName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue} @PSBoundParameters) 
{

# Check that service name is not empty
if([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($serviceName)) 
{            
    Write-Host "Service name is NULL or EMPTY"            
} 
else 
{            


$Choice =  Read-Host -Prompt 'Would you like to start or stop the service'

#Start service
If ($Choice -eq 'start') {

Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock {Start-Service -displayname $serviceName} @PSBoundParameters

Write-Host $serviceName "Starting..." -ForegroundColor Green 
}

#Stop service
If ($Choice -eq 'stop') {

  Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock {Stop-Service -displayname $serviceName} @PSBoundParameters

  Write-Host $serviceName "Stopping..." -ForegroundColor Green
}
 }
  }
else {            
    Write-Host "Service name does not exist"            
}
}

Then you can call Toggle-Service without a parameter to perform it locally, or include the name of a remote server to perform the actions on that server.