Powershell Access to the path is denied

Question

Powershell Access to the path is denied

Ali Ishraq 0

Hi,

I have developed a git pre-commit hook for my workplace. The way it operates is as follows:

There is a pre-commit file that invokes a pre-commit.ps1 file in the same directory.
The pre-commit.ps1 file is used to identify some regular expressions to ensure that any files committed do not have any identifiers specific to my workplace.

The setup works perfectly for me. However, I have tried testing on a colleagues laptop and she is getting the following error when trying to commit:

Access to the path is denied. + CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (:String) [], ParentContainsErrorRecordException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

For testing, we simplified the pre-commit.ps1 file to only print a statement such as:
Write-Host "Hello"

However, she is still getting the same error - so we concluded that the issue must be with the invocation of PowerShell in the pre-commit file. Here is the code in th pre-commit file:

#!/bin/sh
# Get the directory where the script is located
HOOK_DIR=$(dirname "$0")

# Use 'which' to find the PowerShell executable in the PATH
POWERSHELL_PATH=$(which powershell.exe || which pwsh)

# Check if PowerShell was found
if [ -z "$POWERSHELL_PATH" ]; then
    echo "PowerShell not found in PATH"
    exit 1
fi

# Invoke the PowerShell script using the dynamically found path
"$POWERSHELL_PATH" -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -NoProfile -File "$HOOK_DIR/pre-commit.ps1"

I'm not really sure what the issue is, specially since I can run the setup perfectly well, but my colleague cannot.

I have also confirmed:

She has powershell installed
Her Get-ExecutionPolicy is the same as mine, set to "Bypass"
However, her starting directory on a PowerShell terminal is different to mine. Mine starts at H:/, whereas hers starts at *C:\Windows\System32* (not sure if this relevant or I'm missing something).

2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Rich Matheisen 47,686

If you depend on using a particular version of PowerShell the "which powershell.exe || which pwsh" is always going to find PowerShell versions 5 or below. That would make "C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0" the value in POWERSHELL_PATH. The (default) access to that directory for members of the "Users" group is "Read & Execute", "List folder contents", and "Read". So there should be no problem with a Windows user running PowerShell. The "-z" is checking whether the "POWERSHELL__PATH" environment variable is set. Since it isn't, the problem appears to be that the "which powershell.exe || which pwsh" isn't finding a path in the environment variables. Have you verified that the check for the powershell.exe/pwsh is working as expected on your co-workers machine?

Ali Ishraq 0 Reputation points

2024-02-04T00:53:27.38+00:00

Hi, thanks for responding. If the path to powershell.exe/pwsh is not set then wouldn't we get the "PowerShell not found in PATH" printout? I will double check this on my colleagues laptop using "which powershell.exe" or "which pwsh". Though, I don't think any of the computers at my workplace have pwsh, I introduced that as a fail-safe measure.
Rich Matheisen 47,686 Reputation points

2024-02-04T04:14:45.1333333+00:00
Since it's been ages since I've use *nix, and I don't have WSL installed on my machine, try using PowerShell to see what result you get on both machines:

get-command powershell.exe,pwsh| select Name,Source

I notice in your code that you use the ".exe" extension for the PowerShell 5 executable, but only "pwsh" without the extension for PowerShell 7.

An executable file in Windows usually has an extension (the default list can be found in the PATHEXT environment variable). In *nix, executables only require the executable bit ("x") to set in the files' permission.

Because I don't use WSL I don't know if PowerShell 7s' executable is in the *nix file system or in the Windows file system. Nor do I know if there's a PATHEXT variable in *nix.

Ali Ishraq 0

Hi, thanks again for your response. I have tried running the below in PowerShell:

get-command powershell.exe,pwsh| select Name,Source

This is what I can see on my pc:

get-command: The term 'pwsh' 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:1
+ get-command powershell.exe,pwsh| select Name,Source
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (pwsh:String) [Get-Command], CommandNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetCommandCommand

Name						Source
----						------
powershell.exe				C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe

I get the same error if I try "pwsh.exe" instead of "pwsh".

My understanding is that my laptop does not have pwsh since I can only see PowerShell 1 and 3 folders under \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell

Rich Matheisen 47,686

That's correct, you'll get an exception because I didn't include any error handling in that tiny bit of script. :-)

Here's what it looks like when run on a machine with both PowerShell 5 and 7:

PS C:\Users\richmath> $PSVersionTable
Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      5.1.19041.3570
PSEdition                      Desktop
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}
BuildVersion                   10.0.19041.3570
CLRVersion                     4.0.30319.42000
WSManStackVersion              3.0
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1

PS C:\Users\richmath> get-command powershell.exe,pwsh| select Name,Source
Name           Source
----           ------
powershell.exe C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe
pwsh.exe       C:\Program Files\PowerShell\7\pwsh.exe

So, now, what do you see in the environment variable POWERSHELL_PATH when you run this bit of shell code in WSL (not sure what you shell is, but assuming it's Bash)?

POWERSHELL_PATH=$(which powershell.exe || which pwsh)

Does your colleague see the same results on their machine? Can their user access the directory and list its contents? Do they have the necessary rights to execute the executable?

Answer 2

Mine starts at H:/, whereas hers starts at C:\Windows\System32

She likely launched Terminal with "Run as administrator". Do all refernces to any files include the drive letter or do they just referance the current drive or working directory?

so we concluded that the issue must be with the invocation of PowerShell in the pre-commit file.

I don't know what shell you are using, but if you can 'echo "PowerShell not found in PATH"', then add in additional echo statements to validate your environment.

echo "POWERSHELL_PATH"
echo $POWERSHELL_PATH
ls $POWERSHELL_PATH
echo "HOOK_DIR"
echo $HOOK_DIR
ls $HOOK_DIR
echo "Commit script"
ls $HOOK_DIR/pre-commit.ps1

If you still get "Access to the path is denied.", then download and run Process Monitor.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon

Start the trace and stop it immediately after you get the error. Search the trace for "pre-commit.ps1" or "access denied". Is Powershell.exe getting launched? Can it read the script?

If the error is occurring within the PS script, then generate a transcript to trace what it's doing.

https://lazyadmin.nl/powershell/start-transcript/

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Powershell Access to the path is denied

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