Don’t reinvent the wheel
Published October 31, 2016Way back when I used to take Microsoft certification exams there were often questions of the form “Perform task X with the minimum of administrative effort” Most, if nor all, of the possible answers would be correct but the correct answer was the one that achieved the goal with the minimum amount of work.
Many, if not most, administrators don’t seem to follow that model.
This was brought home to me when I saw a forum discussion about collecting event log information from a bunch of remote servers on a regular basis.
You could set up a scheduled task/job that runs a script against the remote servers – collects the log information and populates an Excel spreadsheet
OR
You could enable event log forwarding and just interrogate the combined logs as needed.
The second option is the easier to MAINTAIN and will cost you less effort in the long run.
When you start to solve a problem – stop and search for a bit to see if there is a solution already available in Windows server. Bet you’ll be surprised by what you find
Start and end dates
Published October 31, 2016Be careful with start and end dates when search for files or through event logs. Often people want to see what happened yesterday
If you do this
PS> $end = Get-Date
PS> $start = (Get-Date).AddDays(-1)
PS> $start
30 October 2016 16:32:35
PS> $end
31 October 2016 16:32:16
And you get the last 24 hours
if you really want just yesterday you need to create the exact dates and times
PS> $start = Get-Date -Day 30 -Month 10 -Year 2016 -Hour 00 -Minute 00 -Second 00
PS> $end = Get-Date -Day 31 -Month 10 -Year 2016 -Hour 00 -Minute 00 -Second 00
PS> $start
30 October 2016 00:00:00
PS> $end
31 October 2016 00:00:00
I know there are easier ways but using Get-Date shows exactly what’s happening and is simple
Registration opens 1 November
Published October 31, 2016Registration for the 2017 PowerShell Summit opens tomorrow – 1 November 2016
First come first served. The agenda and registration are available here - https://eventloom.com/event/home/summit2017
Upgrading WSL
Published October 28, 2016If you start WSL (Bash on Ubuntu on Windows) and see messages like this:
7 packages can be updated.
1 update is a security update.
root@RSsurfacePro2:~#
You can view the available updates:
root@RSsurfacePro2:~# apt-get update
Hit:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease
Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates InRelease [95.7 kB]
Get:3 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security InRelease [94.5 kB]
Get:4 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security/main amd64 Packages [160 kB]
Get:5 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security/main Translation-en [65.8 kB]
Get:6 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 Packages [415 kB]
Get:7 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security/universe amd64 Packages [51.9 kB]
Get:8 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security/multiverse amd64 Packages [1,176 B]
Get:9 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main Translation-en [159 kB]
Get:10 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/universe amd64 Packages [356 kB]
Get:11 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/universe Translation-en [128 kB]
Get:12 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/multiverse amd64 Packages [5,492 B]
Fetched 1,532 kB in 35s (42.9 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
And to install the updates use:
apt-get upgrade
PowerShell and DevOps Global Summit 2017 agenda
Published October 25, 2016The agenda for next year's Summit is almost complete - we've notified all speakers as to whether their sessions have been accepted or not. If you haven't received your notification please check your spam/junk mail.
We have a small number of sessions yet to publish - mainly around possible focus groups on the Wednesday afternoon.
To view the agenda go to the Summit event site - from https://powershell.org/summit/ click on the Brochure and registration link.
Registration opens 1 November 2016.
PowerShell 10th Anniversary
Published October 25, 2016If you were in the audience at the 2006 Microsoft European TechEd (or IT Forum or whatever they called it that year) key note presentation you’ll know that 14 November 2016 is the 10th anniversary of PowerShell.
The Powershell team is presenting a day long event on 14th November to commemorate the anniversary.
Initial announcement is here https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/powershell/2016/10/24/join-the-powershell-10th-anniversary-celebration/
More details to follow
PowerShell Summit 2017–agenda
Published October 19, 2016We’re finalising the agenda for the 2017 Summit. Most of the sessions are now up on the event site. Go to https://powershell.org/summit/ and click the Brochure and Registration link. You’ll be able to down load a brochure describing next years Summit and view the proposed agenda (it is subject to change with no notice).
Registration opens 1 November 2016
Server Uptime
Published October 18, 2016Its easy to get the last boot time of a Windows machine but how do you get the uptime
function Get-Uptime {
[CmdletBinding()]
param (
[string]$ComputerName = $env:COMPUTERNAME
)
$os = Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_OperatingSystem -ComputerName $ComputerName
$uptime = (Get-Date) - $os.LastBootUpTime
$uptime
}
Use Get-CimInstance to get the Win32_OperatingSystem class. To calculate the uptime subtract the value of LastBootTime from the current time and date.
You’ll get a Timespan object returned.
PS> Get-Uptime
Days : 1
Hours : 10
Minutes : 32
Seconds : 26
Milliseconds : 838
Ticks : 1243468385381
TotalDays : 1.4391995201169
TotalHours : 34.5407884828056
TotalMinutes : 2072.44730896833
TotalSeconds : 124346.8385381
TotalMilliseconds : 124346838.5381
Pick out whichever properties you need for your report
Current location
Published October 14, 2016Windows 10 gives you the option of installing BASH on Ubuntu - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/commandline/wsl/about also known as the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). More information from https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/
I thought it would be interesting to compare some of the bash commands with their PowerShell equivalents.
First off – current location.
Its not obvious from the bash prompt where you are in the file system so you use pwd
root@RSsurfacePro2:~# pwd
/root
In PowerShell you use Get-Location
PS> Get-Location
Path
----
C:\test
Interestingly you can use pwd in PowerShell
PS> pwd
Path
----
C:\test
That’s because pwd is an alias for Get-Location
PS> get-alias pwd | fl
DisplayName : pwd -> Get-Location
CommandType : Alias
Definition : Get-Location
ReferencedCommand : Get-Location
ResolvedCommand : Get-Location
If you want to discover all existing aliases for Get-Location
PS> get-alias | where ResolvedCommand -like 'get-location' | fl
DisplayName : gl -> Get-Location
CommandType : Alias
Definition : Get-Location
ReferencedCommand : Get-Location
ResolvedCommand : Get-Location
DisplayName : pwd -> Get-Location
CommandType : Alias
Definition : Get-Location
ReferencedCommand : Get-Location
ResolvedCommand : Get-Location
You’ll find that many core PowerShell cmdlets have aliases corresponding to Linux commands. Note that they are removed for PowerShell on Linux to avoid confusion.
Look out for other comparisons soon.
Easy and Expert
Published October 13, 2016This is a very interesting article - https://powershell.org/2016/10/12/no-easy-button-for-configuration-management/.
The premise that there is no “easy” button in IT is spot on and fits with this quote from Theodore Roosevelt:
“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty…”
IT is constantly changing – new technologies, new techniques, and new ways of looking at the problems.
The only way to survive is to keep learning. If you don’t you become part of the problem.
One of the comments castigating the author of the for declaring themselves a “newbie” given the work they’d put into learning DSC also caught my eye. When does someone move from being a newbie to becoming competent or even an expert?
Its as much in the mind of your audience as anything. I’ve been using PowerShell since the days of the version 1 beta code and have written and spoken more about the subject than I care to remember. Does that make me an expert? Many people seem to think so but as far as I’m concerned I’m still learning. So is everyone else that I consider an expert. To misquote
“Expertise is in the eye of the beholder”
When things change or you move onto something new the newbie clock gets reset so we’re all really newbies. Another way to think about it is that an expert is a newbie that has been working with the technology just that little bit longer.
Be wary of self proclaimed experts. The true experts tend to just get on with it.