So I wanted to retrieve the remoteapps present on VM’s in a uniform way, without logging in to either VM’s or database.

Using a custom extension, I tried to execute the Get-RDRemoteApp command and got the following:

Get-RDRemoteApp : A Remote Desktop Services deployment does not exist on server. This operation can be perfor
med after creating a deployment. For information about creating a deployment

Apparently, all the powershell commands for RDS require that you DON’T run them under SYSTEM. Of course VMExtensions run under SYSTEM. So, to get all remoteapps in a RDS deployment, execute the following Powershell script as VMExtension on a connection broker VM:

$farms = get-childitem "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\CentralPublishedResources\PublishedFarms"
foreach($farm in $farms){
    (get-childItem "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\CentralPublishedResources\PublishedFarms\$($farm.PSChildName)\Applications").PSChildName
}

To register this Powershell script as a VM extension and retrieve the results

1. Save the above PS code to a file
2. Upload the file somewhere (e.g. public blob storage)
3. Get the URL of the File
4. Use Login-AzureRMAccount
5. Execute Set-AzureRmVMCustomScriptExtension -FileUri URL TO SCRIPT -Run FILENAME OF SCRIPT -VMName VMNAME -Name “RetrieveRemoteApps” -ResourceGroupName RESOURCEGROUP NAME -location “westeurope” -ForceRerun $(New-Guid).Guid
6. To retrieve the list (after execution): [regex]::Replace(((Get-AzureRmVMDiagnosticsExtension -ResourceGroupName RESOURCEGROUP NAME -VMName VM NAME -Name “RetrieveRemoteApps” -Status).SubStatuses[0].Message), “\\n”, “`n”)

You may know this button:There is no native Powershell command to grant OAuth permissions to an Azure AD Application, so I wrote a function for that. Note that this is NOT a supported way to grant permissions to an application because it does not follow the proper admin consent flow that applications normally use.

The great advantage of my method is that it can be used to grant permissions silently, AND to ‘hidden’ and/or multi-tenant applications that companies like Microsoft use for backend stuff like the Intune API. (e.g. the ‘Microsoft Intune Powershell’ multi-tenant application).

The function requires AzureAD and AzureRM modules installed!

Function Grant-OAuth2PermissionsToApp{
Param(
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]$Username, #global administrator username
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]$Password, #global administrator password
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]$azureAppId #application ID of the azure application you wish to admin-consent to
)

Function Grant-OAuth2PermissionsToApp{
    Param(
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]$Username, #global administrator username
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]$Password, #global administrator password
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]$azureAppId #application ID of the azure application you wish to admin-consent to
    )

    $secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString $Password -AsPlainText -Force
    $mycreds = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ($Username, $secpasswd)
    $res = login-azurermaccount -Credential $mycreds
    $context = Get-AzureRmContext
    $tenantId = $context.Tenant.Id
    $refreshToken = @($context.TokenCache.ReadItems() | Where-Object {$_.tenantId -eq $tenantId -and $_.ExpiresOn -gt (Get-Date)})[0].RefreshToken
    $body = "grant_type=refresh_token&refresh_token=$($refreshToken)&resource=74658136-14ec-4630-ad9b-26e160ff0fc6"
    $apiToken = Invoke-RestMethod "https://login.windows.net/$tenantId/oauth2/token" -Method POST -Body $body -ContentType 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
    $header = @{
    'Authorization' = 'Bearer ' + $apiToken.access_token
    'X-Requested-With'= 'XMLHttpRequest'
    'x-ms-client-request-id'= [guid]::NewGuid()
    'x-ms-correlation-id' = [guid]::NewGuid()}
    $url = "https://main.iam.ad.ext.azure.com/api/RegisteredApplications/$azureAppId/Consent?onBehalfOfAll=true"
    Invoke-RestMethod –Uri $url –Headers $header –Method POST -ErrorAction Stop
}

GITLAB: Grant-OAuth2PermissionsToApp.ps1
	

This post describes how you can use the WIX Toolkit or any DLL file in an Azure Function, in this case to edit an MSI file on the fly. The WIX Toolkit is free, but only runs on Windows. Azure Functions run on Windows too, isn’t that nice 🙂

So, an example use case could be my OnedriveMapper MSI file, which is installed with a configuration GUID property by an admin to customize OnedriveMapper. If that GUID was already in the MSI, no such parameter would be necessary.

Using an Azure function in a download link or http request, we could insert a GUID on the fly and create personalized MSI files on demand.

I’ll leave other applications to your imagination, let’s get started!

1. Download the WIX toolkit (binaries)
2. Extra Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller.dll
3. Add it to the function files or host it at an URL somewhere. In my example, I’m hosting it at http://www.lieben.nu/wix/wix.dll
4. Add your MSI file to your function files or host it at an URL somewhere. In my example, I’m hosting it at http://www.lieben.nu/wix/OnedriveMapper.msi
5. Add the following code to the Azure Function:

Continue reading On-Demand MSI customization using Azure Functions →