MSI 1.3 (D-377) installed the loader under Program Files, where nothing removed it: a
customer found the file on every device. Everything of ours lives under ProgramData.
- Package.wxs 1.4.0: the loader copy goes back to <base>\Msi (new component GUID); the
deferred SYSTEM action, started in System32, reads the copy once, checks our signature
and the publisher pin on those bytes and runs those bytes from memory, so a file a user
planted at that path leads to nothing and no handle keeps the installer from removing
the copy. Every bracket and brace is escaped for the Windows Installer formatter.
- Install-AutopilotMonitor.ps1 2.9: Remove-MsiTransportFolder removes the copy in the
agent-present branch (install and skip clear the base already) and an agent folder that
is then empty; Remove-LegacyMsiLoaderFolder removes MSI 1.3's folder under Program Files
in every outcome while devices still enroll with 1.3.
- Tests: installer unit tests for both functions; the loader's MSI contract; the harness
asserts after every run that nothing exists outside ProgramData, runs the MSI 1.4 action
read from Package.wxs (valid, foreign, unsigned, changed; install, skip, marker only,
agent present) and expects MSI 1.3's folder gone; BootstrapContractTests pin the
directory chain, the publisher pin, the escapes and the working directory.
- build-msi.yml: smoke job installs the built MSI on windows-2022/2025 with the deployment
marker set and expects nothing under ProgramData or Program Files, then uninstalls.
- internal: D-384, footprint doc, plan, lessons, backlog.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Findings of a Claude security scan against b4af8c7, each measured first, plus
the MSI channel incident a parallel session found.
- Installer 2.8 extracts the agent ZIP with its own containment check
(Expand-AgentPayload): every entry is resolved against the payload folder
before the first write, a rooted or escaping name refuses the package. The
inbox Expand-Archive of Windows PowerShell 5.1 already refuses such entries
(measured), so the finding was not exploitable as reported; the guarantee is
now the script's own, pinned by tests, and Expand-Archive is banned.
- Installer 2.8 also moves PowerShell's own location out of the agent folder
(Set-Location): on the MSI channel the location pointed at the deleted Msi
folder and the agent start failed with error 267 since 2.7 went live. When
the agent program never started, the Agent folder is removed again so a later
run can install; the stderr line is flattened to one line.
- Run folders younger than an hour stay (a loader may still run there); the
loader's log is taken only from a run folder that is ours.
- Loader 1.4 (minimum installer 2.8) checks before every download attempt that
its run folder is still a real folder of ours, opens the download for reading
before the signature and identity checks and holds it until the run ends, so
what it checked is what runs and nothing can replace or delete it meanwhile.
- Agent: the protected folder security names Administrators as owner; a folder
with another owner or a reparse point is not taken as protected, reparse points
are refused, the base is created protected, install mode protects base and
Agent and refuses to install when it cannot; every start re-checks both.
- Bootstrap MSI 1.3.0 installs its loader under Program Files, where a standard
user cannot create the folder first.
- Tests: containment table, hour rule, held handle, owner and junction tests
(ElevatedFact for the owner assignment), MSI location contract; harness
scenarios for an escaping package (installer and OOBE script), the hour rule,
the Program Files layout and an agent that does not start, with the install
stand-in starting a real program from PowerShell's location. OOBE golden
regenerated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Loader 1.3 downloads into a protected run folder of its own
(%ProgramData%\AutopilotMonitor-Loader-<8 hex>), runs the installer only when it
is signed by the pinned publisher and declares the installer role and version
2.7 or later, removes the folder after a successful run and never touches the
agent folder. Unbound arguments now reach the installer by name; the array
splat bound them by position.
- Installer 2.7 refuses without elevation and decides before it writes: guards
read HKLM through the 64-bit view (a 32-bit host never saw the deployment
marker), guard 5 is covered by the agent check. An agent's folder stays as it
is, a skip without agent removes the folder, an install starts from an emptied,
protected folder and stages the ZIP in a run folder. It moves the MSI's working
directory out, writes stderr only on failure and removes the copy older loaders
left at the fixed path.
- Help texts of both scripts state what customers need; .CHANGELOG, which made
Get-Help ignore the help, gives way to the Platform Changelog.
- OOBE go-script: the installer's shared helpers, its own elevation check
(#Requires is ignored under irm | iex), a run folder.
- Publish: version read line-anchored, the loader's own check on the exact
publish bytes, installers before loaders, -Channel dev (dispatch input).
- Bootstrap MSI 1.2.0; Test-ShouldBootstrapAgent reads the 64-bit view;
Uninstall removes loader run folders and keeps the Deployed marker.
- Tests: Pester unit suites, an integration harness running the real scripts
(loader 1.2 and the MSI 1.0 runner frozen in TestData), BootstrapContractTests;
the gate runs on windows-2022 and windows-2025, once more as SYSTEM, and against
a real standard user.
[skip actions]: published by a dispatch of publish-scripts.yml, channel dev first.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The full subject of an EV certificate is a line of street address and registration
numbers and pushed the useful part of the log line off the screen. The CN answers the
question the log has to answer. The full subject is still logged in the one case where it
is the finding itself: a valid signature from a publisher that is not us.
Loader 1.1 -> 1.2; a Pester case pins the short form. Suite on PS 5.1: 45/45.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Invoke-BootstrapDownload.ps1 and Start-AutopilotMonitor.ps1 had become the same script:
download the current installer, run it, log, always exit 0. The MSI copy additionally
downloaded and executed WITHOUT verifying what it got, which is exactly the gap the loader
was written to close. The MSI is now packaging only -- it installs and runs the same file
that is assigned directly in Intune, and both delivery channels get publisher verification
from one implementation.
Dropped from the MSI path: its own Deployed-marker check. That guard lives in stage 2 and
runs there anyway, so the only cost is one download on a device that is already deployed.
Kept: the log file name. bootstrap-msi.log is what the diagnostics tooling keys on to tell
the MDM-LOB channel apart from the Intune script channel, so the loader takes -LogFileName
(default bootstrap-loader.log) and the custom action passes bootstrap-msi.log. A Pester
test now pins that contract across the two files -- renaming the parameter on either side
would leave the MSI channel logging under the wrong name.
Package version 1.0.2 -> 1.1.0 so Intune LOB update detection sees the new payload, and a
new component GUID because the key path file changed.
Loader 1.0 -> 1.1. Bootstrap suite on Windows PowerShell 5.1: 44/44.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Start-AutopilotMonitor.ps1 is the new stage 1 -- the file an administrator assigns in
Intune. It carries no enrollment logic: it downloads the published installer, verifies its
Authenticode signature, and runs it in the same process, passing through every remaining
argument. Assigning the installer directly stays supported and unchanged.
The point of the split is that the customer-held artifact stops changing. Today every
bootstrap change forces customers to replace their Intune copy, so the fleet runs a
distribution of script versions we do not control. It is also what makes script signing
worth doing: signing a file that gets swapped by hand each release is a one-off gain,
signing a loader that never changes is permanent.
The loader is deliberately minimal, because it is the one piece that cannot be fixed
remotely -- every guard placed in it would be frozen for years. All guards stay in stage 2.
Verification pins the certificate SUBJECT, never a thumbprint: certificates get renewed and
a deployed loader cannot be, so a thumbprint pin would strand the fleet at the next
renewal. A hash oracle was rejected for a different reason -- it would have to be fetched
from the same host as the script, so it could not survive a compromise of that host, while
the expected publisher travels inside the loader.
Fail-closed on verification, fail-soft on exit: nothing runs without a valid signature from
us (running unverified code as SYSTEM is the risk being removed here), but the loader still
exits 0, because a device without monitoring is acceptable and a failed enrollment step is
not. The accepted cost is that a device which can never fetch or verify stays silent.
Publisher changes:
- every published script is signed (loader, installer, both -Dev renders,
Test-ShouldBootstrapAgent, Grant-AutopilotMonitorAddOn), and signing is the LAST
transformation: it covers exactly the CRLF/UTF-8 bytes Get-PublishBytes produced, so
nothing may normalise or re-encode them afterwards.
- signing is mandatory for a real publish. Only -DryRun may run unsigned, because the PR
gate executes the publisher without any Azure login.
- comparisons against a published copy strip the signature block first. A timestamped
signature differs on every run, so without stripping the version-bump guard and the
drift check would report a change for every unchanged script.
- the bump guard became Assert-VersionBump and now covers the loader as well.
- version.json gains loaderVersion. Additive, no consumer yet: stage 2 is current by
construction, so only stage 1's version says anything about a customer's Intune copy.
- -SignedOutputDir writes the exact uploaded bytes for the CI artifact, in a dry run too --
that is how a signed script gets inspected before it reaches anyone.
publish-scripts.yml logs in with the signing identity first and only to fetch the Key Vault
token (azure/login sets the default az account and the storage login has to be the one that
stays), then publishes and offers the signed scripts as an artifact. build-agent.yml passes
the same parameters on a stable cutover.
Tests: 14 new Pester cases, including that a validly signed script from a FOREIGN publisher
is refused -- that is what an attacker with any code-signing certificate can produce. Full
bootstrap suite on Windows PowerShell 5.1: 43/43.
Not covered: the MSI runner still downloads stage 2 without verifying it, and the customer
docs still describe the direct assignment only.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Oliver Kieselbach