How can I return alert from IIS application pool identity after updating wrong password using PowerShell?

Question

I have PowerShell script to update IIS application pool identity password in PowerShell. Powershell script accepts when I give wrong password as well without any alert or warning and no messages in event viewer. After updating password I recycled the application pool and it working good even I updated with wrong password. How can I validate that application pool identity password updated with the correct on or not.

Can someone please help me to achieve this through PowerShell?

Answer 1

Hi @Prathyusha Singareddy ,

As you said, it does not alert about wrong password.

This is because powershell writes the username and password directly to the applicationhost.config file. Whether it is a Powershell or Appcmd command, the contents of the command are directly written to the applicationhost.config file. It does not verify that what was written is correct.
If you edit applicationhost.config directly, the file will also not verify that the content is correct. When you get a prompt message after changing your password in IIS Manager, it's because IIS Manager has built-in authentication.

So you need to add an authentication command to the powershell script to determine the password or username. Users that can usually be set as app pool identity are all users or user groups within the machine.

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Best regards,
Bruce Zhang

Answer 2

Building onto @Bruce Zhang answer, here is a little script I added at the top of my powershell to make sure the username/password are valid ahead of updating the identity credentials in my application pool.

# not-so-secure method, but it works
$creds = [System.Management.Automation.PSCredential]::new("Americas\ProcessMIASDev",(ConvertTo-SecureString "Password" -AsPlainText -Force))

# or this more secure method which forces you to enter the password in a popup vs saving it in a script
$creds = $host.ui.PromptForCredential("Need credentials", "Please enter your user name and password.", "Americas\ProcessMIASDev", "Server Credentials")

# here is how you'd use the $creds object
$pool.processModel.userName = $creds.UserName             
$pool.processModel.password = $creds.GetNetworkCredential().Password

I know this isn't helpful for your project from 18 months ago, but perhaps it will help someone in the future.