Get-LogonHistory: Who was logged on to my server?

Author included in Scripts PowerShell Windows Server

Thursday, Oct 5, 2017 592 words 3 minutes

Every System Administrator comes into a situation where you want to see who and how many users were logged on to your servers either via Remote Desktop or via script.

This little function evaluates the System log with the help of Get-EventLog and delivers you the latest logon and logoff events for every user.

I’ve left you the Invoke-Command commented if you want to use PowerShell Remoting (WinRM).

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Function Get-LogonHistory
{
<#
.SYNOPSIS
    Retrieves history of last logged on users with usernames and respective logoff/logon times.

.DESCRIPTION
    Retrieves history of last logged on users with usernames and respective logoff/logon times.

.PARAMETER Newest
    This command gets the most recent entries from the event log according to its value.

.PARAMETER ComputerName
    A single Computer or an array of computer names. The default is localhost ($env:COMPUTERNAME).

.PARAMETER Credentials
    Commit Credentials for a different domain.

.PARAMETER Verbose
    Run in Verbose Mode.

.EXAMPLE
    PS C:\> Get-LogonHistory -ComputerName SERVER1 -Credentials Get-Credential -Newst

.NOTES
    Author:  Sebastian Gräf
    Email:   ps@graef.io
    Date:    April 15, 2017
    PSVer:   2.0/3.0/4.0/5.0
#>

    [Cmdletbinding()]
    Param (
        [Parameter(ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName = $true, ValueFromPipeline = $true)]
        [string[]]$ComputerName = $Env:COMPUTERNAME,
        [Parameter(ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName = $true, ValueFromPipeline = $true)]
        [string]$Newest = 10,
        [Parameter(ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName = $true, ValueFromPipeline = $true)]
        [ValidateNotNull()]
        [System.Management.Automation.PSCredential][System.Management.Automation.Credential()]
        $Credentials = [System.Management.Automation.PSCredential]::Empty
    )

    Begin
    {
        Write-Verbose " [$($MyInvocation.InvocationName)] :: Start Process"
        $Results = @()
        $ProgressCounter = 0
    }


    Process
    {
        foreach ($Computer in $ComputerName)
        {
            $ProgressCounter++
            Write-Progress -activity "Running on $Computer" -status "Please wait ..." -PercentComplete (($ProgressCounter / $ComputerName.length) * 100)
            if (Test-Connection $Computer -Count 1 -Quiet)
            {
                Write-Verbose " [$($MyInvocation.InvocationName)] :: Processing $Computer"
                try
                {
                    $ELogs = Get-EventLog System -Source Microsoft-Windows-WinLogon -ComputerName $Computer -Newest $Newest
                    #$ELogs = Invoke-Command { param ($Newest) Get-EventLog System -Source Microsoft-Windows-WinLogon -Newest $Newest } -ArgumentList $Newest -ComputerName $Computer
                    ForEach ($Log in $ELogs)
                    {
                        If ($Log.InstanceId -eq 7001)
                        {
                            $EventType = "Logon"
                        }
                        ElseIf ($Log.InstanceId -eq 7002)
                        {
                            $EventType = "Logoff"
                        }
                        Else
                        {
                            Continue
                        }
                        $Results += New-Object PSObject -Property @{
                            User = (New-Object System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier $Log.ReplacementStrings[1]).Translate([System.Security.Principal.NTAccount])
                            Time = $Log.TimeWritten
                            'Event Type' = $EventType
                        }
                    }
                    $Results
                }
                catch
                {
                    Write-Verbose " Host [$Computer] Failed with Error: $($Error[0])"
                }
            }
            else
            {
                Write-Verbose " Host [$Computer] Failed Connectivity Test"
            }
        }
        $result | Select User, Time, "Event Type" | Sort Time -Descending
    }
    End
    {
        Write-Progress -activity "Running on $Computer" -Status "Completed." -Completed
        Write-Verbose " [$($MyInvocation.InvocationName)] :: End Process"
    }
}

Please keep in mind, it evaluates every event, this means even if a user was doing actions remotely using a powershell script or just logged on, it will be displayed as well. If you want to distinguish between script logons you can easily have a look at the logon and logoff times. If a user account was only logged for some seconds … then this is an indicator for a remote script logon.

The script will give you following output:

While using following command you can also query this function to more than just one server:

/get-logonhistory-who-was-logged-on-to-my-server/featured-image-preview.png — .

1
Get-LogonHistory -ComputerName (gc C:\computers.txt) -Newest 30