How WMI, DCOM, RPC and UAC effect access to remote Window Systems for Monitoring | Product Discussions

Mike Moniz · 2021-10-05T22:49:03Z

...or how to get LogicMonitor pass WMI/DCOM Access Denied MessagesI've been dealing with monitoring some systems that are either not joined to the domain or where the LM service account is not allowed to be a domain admin. There are guides from LM and more general online posts for various workarounds but not always describing what exactly these changes are doing and which parts are really needed for your needs. So I put together this post on my notes. Please review the comments on this post for any corrections and comments. Note that I don't work for LogicMonitor so this is based on my understanding, research and testing. Please let me know if you see any mistakes or misunderstand anything. -MikeHow LogicMonitor monitors basic Windows systemsLogicMonitor uses WMI and WinRM ("Get-CIM*") requests to monitor Window Servers, with WMI being the most used. WMI requests over the network use DCOM technology which communicates over RPC on the network. To make WMI queries over the network, you need to have permissions within DCOM/RPC and WMI. Access to DCOM is controlled by dcomcnfg.exe and WMI access is controlled by Computer Management > Services and Applications > WMI Control. WinRM access is simply controlled by being in the Remote Management Users group.User Account Control (UAC)To complicate things further, UAC (User Account Control) is applied on both local and remote network access. UAC is designed to de-elevate any administrator user so they get normal user permissions. You can effectively think of it as removes your user from the Administrators group on-the-fly for your request.When working locally with UAC on, you can regain full administrator privileges by using "Run as Administrator" or disable UAC notifications in the control panel. Disabling UAC notifications will have the shell auto-elevate for you. Setting the UAC slider in Control Panel to "never notify" will not disable UAC but just remove the notification and auto-escalate locally. The slider does NOT affect remote UAC use and it will still apply in full force.The effect of UAC on remote connections will also depend on if the remote server is joined to a domain or not. When a server is joined to a domain, any local administrator (which includes domain admins) making remote calls will run with full administrators privileges. Basically, UAC will not affect remote network access on domains.When a remote server is not joined to a domain, just a workgroup, then UAC takes full effect on remote access for all local administrators except the built-in "Administrator" account. So if you use a dedicated monitoring account (as suggested) that is a member of the local Administrators group, UAC will effectively remove administrators group access from the monitoring account remote access. There isn't a way to "Run as Administrator" with WMI remote requests.UAC's Effect on DCOM and WMIBy Default, recent Windows versions provide the following permissions (simplified for our purposes):* Remote DCOM: Administrators, Performance Log Users, Distributed COM Users* Remote WMI: AdministratorsSo by default Windows only allows those with administrators privileges to access WMI remotely. If you are a normal user you will be blocked by DCOM before you get to WMI. But if you were part of the Performance Log Users or Distributed Com Users, you would get past DCOM.When remote UAC is in effect, UAC will remove your Administrators permissions as mentioned above. This causes you to be blocked by DCOM anyway unless you are also part of those two groups. Doesn't matter if you are part of the local Administrators group.There are two ways you can allow access:1) Fully disable UAC by setting the EnableLUA registry value to 0 and reboot. This will fully disable UAC in Windows. This would stop UAC from removing administrator privileges, allowing access to anything that allows access to administrators. If you want to have full administrator access for monitoring I would suggest this option.2) First modify WMI Control to allow your actual account to remotely query WMI. Then either add the account to the Performance Log Users or Distributed COM Users group, or modify DCOM permissions directly to allow your actual account to get remote access. Just assume you are not joined to the local Administrators group in this case. You will have more limited access to monitoring including LM DataSource "Files Services" and Windows Services monitoring not working (without the workaround talked about later).DCOM/RPC PortsStandard remote WMI queries use RPC to connect and RPC uses a mess of ports. First, the Collector would connect to the remote system over TCP 135. The remote system would then pick a high port and ask the Collector to use this new high port for future communications. The high port depends on the OS but current Windows uses ports 49152 thru 65535. If there is a firewall/router between the Collector the remote system and it's not RPC/WMI-aware (being statefull is not enough), you need to open all of those ports between the two. There is a way to modify Windows to limit the IP range but it would be global on that server.WinRM/PSRemote AccessA few LogicMonitor DataSources use WinRM (PSRemote) instead of WMI, like the DHCP Server DataSources. This uses the WS-Man (Web Services for Management) protocol on TCP 5985 and 5986 instead of RPC. WinRM has its own set of permissions needed.So to include WinRM in our previous simplified default permissions list:* Remote WinRM/PSRemote: Administrators, Remote Management Users* Remote DCOM: Administrators, Performance Log Users, Distributed COM Users* Remote WMI: AdministratorsBy default Windows only allows those with administrators privileges to access WinRM remotely. If you are a normal user (or UAC makes you into a regular user) you will be blocked by WinRM first before you get to DCOM or WMI. From what I can tell, using WinRM still requires access to WMI and DCOM. I have not experimented with this much.To allow access to WinRM you would add the user to the "Remote Management Users" group. As far as I know, there isn't a management console to control WinRM permissions and the user group is the official method to provide access without having Administrators access.Windows Services AccessMonitoring Windows Services as non-admin (or with UAC removing admin) is especially tricky.By Default, recent Windows versions provide the following permissions to look at the Windows Services Controller (simplified for our purposes):* Authenticated users: Query Service Config* Interactive: Service Config + Service Status + Start Services + Read SACL* Service: Service Config + Service Status + Start Services + Read SACL* System: Service Config + Service Status + Start Services + Stop Services + Read SACL* Administrators: All Access* All Application Packages: Query Service ConfigYou can add the following ACL to the existing SDDL string to give a LogicMonitor Service Account read access to most services:'(A;;CCLCRPRC;;;SID_HERE)A = Access AllowedCCLCRPRC = CC: Query Service Config = LC: Query Service Status = RP: Start Services = RC: Read security ACLsSID_HERE = Replace with the SID of the LogicMonitor Service AccountI found that RP and RC permissions are required for the WMI request to workEach service can also have its own overriding ACL, so providing access to Windows Services Controller might not be enough. I avoid this workaround if I can. I kinda consider it a limitation of non-admin access and I'm hesitant about playing with per-service ACLs personally.Possible Fixes or Workaround StepsHow to fully disable UAC:1. Run the following single command in PowerShell (run as administrator) then reboot the serverNew-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system -Name EnableLUA -PropertyType DWord -Value 0 -ForceHow to Modify WMI:1. Computer Management > Services and Applications > WMI Control 2. Right-click and choose properties > Security tab 3. Choose Root then Security button 4. Add the local LogicMonitor service account and check the boxes for Allow Execute Methods and Remote Enable. 5. Click Advanced button > choose the service account > Edit 6. Change Applied to into "This namespace and subnamespaces". 7. Click OK on all the windows. 8. Restart the Windows Management Instrumentation service (and its dependencies).How to gain DCOM Access (suggested method):1. Add local LogicMonitor service account to the "Performance Log Users" group.Note that adding the user to "Performance Monitor Users" will not provide DCOM access by default.How to gain WinRM Access:1. Add local LogicMonitor service account to the "Remote Management Users" group.

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How WMI, DCOM, RPC and UAC effect access to remote Window Systems for Monitoring | Product Discussions | LogicMonitor Community