Question

VBScript - check for presence of computer certificate

Asked by: straynor

Hi all,

I am about to deploy a VPN client to our workstations that require remote access to our network.

I would like to have a little vbscript\hta\program that the helpdesk guys can run on a PC that will check for the presence of a computer certificate from our enterprise CA in the local computer store, and a registry value.   Basically to save them having to click into the mmc and regedit, they can run the program and get a couple of green ticks\red x's.

I know the registry check is very easy, but I do not know if it is possible to check the local machine's Computer store for a certificate issued from our CA.

I have looked at the certutil.exe tool from the resource kit but while it is cearly comprehensive, i'm not sure if it will do what i want.

Any advice\experience with this?

Many thanks.

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Asked On
2008-08-06 at 07:41:11ID23625843
Tags

Microsoft

,

Windows

,

XP\Vista

,

Certificates

Topics

Automation

,

Virtual Private Networking (VPN)

,

VB Script

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: RobSampsonPosted on 2008-08-06 at 20:18:51ID: 22177120

Hi, if you run this on a client:
certutil -store -v my

do you get the certificate information you are after?

Rob.

 

by: straynorPosted on 2008-08-08 at 06:28:55ID: 22189651

Hi Rob,

Yes it does show the details on the relevant certificate, thanks.

Now to programmatically check it.

If i were to run that command from a shell, pipe the output to a txt file and then search the text file for the computer's hostname, i could get a yes/no.  Any better ideas?

Thanks.

 

by: RobSampsonPosted on 2008-08-10 at 23:11:40ID: 22202094

That could work, but would probably be easier with a VBS script instead of batch....so, save the code below to a VBS file, and run it.  Then, you will see the CertUtil output in a Message Box. We could then just go through that output to find a specific certificate if you want....

Regards,

Rob.

Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
strCommand = "certutil -store -v my"
Set objExec = objShell.Exec(strCommand)
While objExec.Status = 0
	WScript.Sleep 100
Wend
strOutput = Replace(objExec.StdOut.ReadAll, VbCrLf & "CertUtil: -store command completed successfully.", "")
MsgBox strOutput

                                              
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