Score:0

windows remote shutdown & "The RPC server is unavailable"

ar flag

I have a windows computer in remote network, which i want to restart. I do not have physical access to that PC.

Reason for desire to restart - Remote Desktop fails to connect - endless "configuring remote session".

When I try to invoke shutdown /f /g /m \\192.168.x.x after around 30 seconds I get message "The RPC server is unavailable.(1722)"

  • I can successfully ping that remote PC
  • I was able connect to it using mmc to enable "Auto sign in" policy and it was successfully changed
  • Remote tasklist /s 192.168.x.x fails with the same 'The RPC server is unavailable'

It means some connectivity is available, but something is preventing "remote shutdown"

Question: any ideas regarding how this problem can be fixed remotely? Or ... is there some other way to perform remote restart?

cn flag
At a minimum tcp/135 needs to be open. Could be other firewall rules required.
ar flag
from nmap: Discovered open ports 139, 445, 135, 3389, 1947, 2869, 5357 (computer was accessilbe normally few days ago, and no one could change firewall rules there)
cn flag
There is also a high port requirement for RPC in addition to 135. 49152-65535, unless a custom range has been configured.
Score:-1
ar flag

As far as I understand so far - nothing can help in my particular conditions:

  1. Native remote shutdown/restart works only via MS RPC - and if it is dead, there is no other 'standard' way. I suppose one willing to have an alternative way to manage the host remotelly - install SSH server, which nowadays is also 'standard' windows component, however not installed by default.

  2. I managed to find a person to inspect that PC physically. Diagnose is pessimistic - after restarting via power button it fails to boot saying "there is no bootable device", hovewer original boot drives are present in BIOS and look alive.

So ... the most probable (though not 100% confirmed) reason for all that crap is Windows auto-updates. I already observed similar thing few times: when Windows tries to auto-upgrade to newer major release - system dies.

mangohost

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.