Get-WmiObject : The RPC server is unavailable. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BA)

Question

When I run

Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure -Computer hostname | select serialnumber

it works for both local and remote hosts.

W

Answer 1

Solved.

I was running into the exact same error message when trying to execute the following script (partial) against a remote VM that was configured to be in the WORKGROUP.

Restart-Computer -ComputerName MyComputer -Authentication Default -Credential $cred -force

I noticed I could run the script from another VM in the same WORKGROUP when I disabled the firewall but still couldn't do it from a machine on the domain. Those two things along with Stackflow suggestions is what brought me to the following solution:

Note: Change these settings at your own risk. You should understand the security implications of these changes before applying them.

On the remote machine:

• Make sure you re-enable your Firewall if you've disabled it during testing.
• Run Enable-PSRemoting from PowerShell with success
• Go into wf.msc (Windows Firewall with Advanced Security)
• Confirm the Private/Public inbound 'Windows Management Instrumentation (DCOM-In)' rule is enabled AND make sure the 'Remote Address' property is 'Any' or something more secure.
• Confirm the Private/Public inbound 'Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI-In)' rule is enabled AND make sure the 'Remote Address' property is 'Any' or something more secure.

Optional: You may also need to perform the following if you want to run commands like 'Enter-PSSession'.

• Confirm the Private/Public inbound 'Windows Management Instrumentation (ASync-In)' rule is enabled AND make sure the 'Remote Address' property is 'Any' or something more secure.
• Open up an Inbound TCP port to 5985

IMPORTANT! - It's taking my remote VM about 2 minutes or so after it reboots to respond to the 'Enter-PSSession' command even though other networking services are starting up without problems. Give it a couple minutes and then try.

Side Note: Before I changed the 'Remote Address' property to 'Any', both of the rules were set to 'Local subnet'.

Answer 2

Your code probably isn't using a correct machine name, you should double check that.

Your error is:

Get-WmiObject : The RPC server is unavailable. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BA)

This is the result you get when a machine is not reachable. So the firewall suggestions are reasonable, but in this case probably not correct because you say this works:

Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure -Computer hostname

So in your case it seems when this line is executed:

Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure -Computer $_

$_ doesn't contain a proper computer name. You could check type and contents of $_. Probably there is a problem with the file contents. If the file looks right, then maybe the lines are not properly terminated. Maybe take a closer look using Write-Host:

ForEach ($_ in gc u:\pub\list.txt) {
    Write-Host "Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure -Computer '$_'"
    Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure -Computer $_ | select serialnumber | format-table -auto @{Label="Hostname"; Expression={$_}}, @{Label="Service Tag"; Expression={$_.serialnumber}}
}

Answer 3

I was having the same issue using foreach. I saved the list to $servers and used this which worked:

ForEach ($_ in $Servers) { Write-Host "Host $($_)" | Get-WmiObject win32_SystemEnclosure -Computer $_ | format-table -auto @{Label="Service Tag"; Expression={$_.serialnumber}}
}

Answer 4

I faced the similar issue on new server that I built through automated scripts via vcenter api. Looks like the "Remote Procedure Call (RPC)" service may not be running on the remote machine. you need to wait for the service to come up to use the Get-WmiObject command. Hence I simply put the script into sleep for sometime and it worked.