How to install WMIC for Linux and monitor Windows machines

When monitoring a Windows machine, whether it’s a server or workstation, the key is to avoid installing third-party software on that system.

Everybody knows how to do that by installing an agent and then controlling it remotely from a different station but without it, it’s a lot more difficult.

That’s where WMIC comes into play, a white-hat hacker tool that can become very useful in managing remote Windows systems.

What is WMIC and how does it help?

WMIC or Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line is a tool that uses the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) for Windows machines management.

Essentially, it’s how Microsoft combined the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) and the Common Information Model (CIM) standards.

For short, it’s a tool that will allow you to control and manage Windows systems remotely by using command lines.

It was designed for Windows and it works perfectly in command-line tools but here, we will show you how to install it on a Linux machine.

The Linux client is not as powerful as its Windows iteration because it is limited to a list of possible requests but it can be really handy if you don’t want to start your Windows VM.

Once installed, WMIC provides information about the status of local or remote computer systems.

But you can also perform actions on remote systems like configuring the security settings, changing the system properties, changing permissions for authorized users and user groups, and a lot more.

How do I install WMIC for Linux?

Use the following set of commands to install WMIC for Linux:

$ sudo aptitude install autoconf

$ cd /data/tools/
$ wget http://www.openvas.org/download/wmi/wmi-1.3.14.tar.bz2
$ bzip2 -cd wmi-1.3.14.tar.bz2 | tar xf -
$ cd wmi-1.3.14/
$ sudo make "CPP=gcc -E -ffreestanding"
$ sudo cp Samba/source/bin/wmic /usr/local/bin/

To use WMIC, input this general command: wmic -U user%password //host "query"

Here are the most important WMIC list of options:

Variable	Effect
-?, –help	Show this help message
-A, –authentication-file=FILE	Get the credentials from a file
–delimiter=STRING	Delimiter to use when querying multiple values, default to ‘|’
-d, –debuglevel=DEBUGLEVEL	Set debug level
–debug-stderr	Send debug output to STDERR
-i, –scope=SCOPE	Use this Netbios scope
-k, –kerberos=STRING	Use Kerberos
-l, –log-basename=LOGFILEBASE	Basename for log/debug files
–leak-report	Enable talloc leak reporting on exit
–leak-report-full	Enable full talloc leak reporting on exit
-m, –maxprotocol=MAXPROTOCOL	Set max protocol level
–namespace=STRING	WMI namespace, default to root\cimv2
-N, –no-pass	Don’t ask for a password
-n, –netbiosname=NETBIOSNAME	Primary netbios name
–option=name=value	Set smb.conf option from command line
-O, –socket-options=SOCKETOPTIONS	Socket options to use
–password=STRING	Password
-P, –machine-pass	Use stored machine account password (implies -k)
–realm=REALM	Set the realm name
-R, –name-resolve=NAME-RESOLVE-ORDER	Use these name resolution services only
–simple-bind-dn=STRING	DN to use for a simple bind
-S, –signing=on|off|required	Set the client signing state
-s, –configfile=CONFIGFILE	Use alternative configuration file
–usage	Display brief usage message
–use-security-mechanisms=STRING	Restricted list of authentication mechanisms available for use with this authentication
-U, –user=[DOMAIN\]USERNAME[%PASSWORD]	Set the network username
-W, –workgroup=WORKGROUP	Set the workgroup name

Read more about this topic

• Best remote control software for Windows 11
• Best remote troubleshooting tools for Windows 10
• Best remote desktop tools for poor connections

WMIC usage examples

As you can see, WMIC is pretty generous in what it offers and controlling a system remotely without using an agent is always a great advantage.

So, let’s see just a few examples on how to use WMIC to get valuable information about a remote system.

Enter the command below to get all the system information from the system:

wmic -U unknown //192.168.1.12 "select * from Win32_ComputerSystem"

If you want to know about all the running processes on the remote system, input the following command:

wmic -U unknown%oopsoops //192.168.1.12 "select caption, name, parentprocessid, processid from win32_process"

After running the command, you will see a list of processes just like the one above except the one in our screenshot was obtained on Command Prompt.

We hope that our article helped you instal WMIC on your Linux machine and now you are able to manage the remote Windows system.

For more information, you might also be interested in our article about the differences between Windows kernel and Linux kernel.

Did you manage to install and use WMIC? Tell us all about your experience in a comment on the dedicated section below.