The Windows runas command and the /netonly switch

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Earlier today I needed to administer a Windows Server remotely, using a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in. Unfortunately, the computer I was using was in one domain and the remote server was in a workgroup, meaning that many of the MMC operations failed due to security issues. I tried running MMC as the administrator for the remote machine (using runas /user:remotecomputername\username mmc) but kept on getting a message that indicated an authentication failure:

RUNAS ERROR: Unable to run – mmc
1311: There are currently no logon servers available to service the logon request.

Then I found out about an obscure switch for the runas command – /netonly, used to indicate that the supplied credentials are for remote access only. By changing my command to:

runas /netonly /user:remotecomputername\username mmc

I was able to authenticate against the remote computer without needing the credentials to also be valid on the local computer, as described by Craig Andera.

3 thoughts on “The Windows runas command and the /netonly switch”

Thanks for this article, it solved my problem

Hi,
I have a vista machine in a workgroup, and a 2008 machine in a workgroup. Using this command on the vista machine, logging in with the 2008 credentials does not allow the use of remote mmc consoles to connect to 2008 successfully.
dammit

I used this method to connect to SQL Server Analysis Serives from a local computer using EXCEL 2010. Same principle exactly. I posted what I did on my blog.

A. Gupta says:

Monday 7 December 2009 at 20:27

Thanks for this article, it solved my problem
bob says:

Thursday 25 February 2010 at 23:04

Hi,
I have a vista machine in a workgroup, and a 2008 machine in a workgroup. Using this command on the vista machine, logging in with the 2008 credentials does not allow the use of remote mmc consoles to connect to 2008 successfully.
dammit
davidbridge says:

Friday 4 October 2013 at 9:53

I used this method to connect to SQL Server Analysis Serives from a local computer using EXCEL 2010. Same principle exactly. I posted what I did on my blog.