Wanted
Published February 24, 2017Wanted one nice kind PowerShell community member to buy the last lonely ticket for the 2017 PowerShell and DevOps Summit.
That’s right we have one place left. And its definitely the last. if you want it – better hurry.
Get-ADUser doesn’t display all properties
Published February 16, 2017Microsoft’s Active Directory cmdlets have some issues. One of the ones that catches everyone when they start using them is that Get-ADUser doesn’t display all properties.
A default call to Get-ADUser displays a subset of the available properties of the user object:
DistinguishedName : CN=FOX Fred,OU=UserAccounts,DC=Manticore,DC=org
Enabled : True
GivenName :
Name : FOX Fred
ObjectClass : user
ObjectGUID : db5a3975-980d-4749-b9c0-48aff9217b2a
SamAccountName : foxfred
SID : S-1-5-21-759617655-3516038109-1479587680-1314
Surname :
UserPrincipalName : FredFox@manticore.org
Even if the properties are empty – such as Givenname and Surname – the property name is displayed. So, how do you get the properties that aren’t part of the default list?
There’s the brute force approach:
PS> Get-ADUser -Identity foxfred -Properties *
AccountExpirationDate :
accountExpires : 9223372036854775807
AccountLockoutTime :
AccountNotDelegated : False
AllowReversiblePasswordEncryption : False
AuthenticationPolicy : {}
AuthenticationPolicySilo : {}
BadLogonCount : 0
badPasswordTime : 0
badPwdCount : 0
CannotChangePassword : False
CanonicalName : Manticore.org/UserAccounts/FOX Fred
Certificates : {}
City :
CN : FOX Fred
codePage : 0
Company :
CompoundIdentitySupported : {}
Country :
countryCode : 0
Created : 17/11/2016 14:07:13
createTimeStamp : 17/11/2016 14:07:13
Deleted :
Department :
Description :
DisplayName :
DistinguishedName : CN=FOX Fred,OU=UserAccounts,DC=Manticore,DC=org
Division :
DoesNotRequirePreAuth : False
dSCorePropagationData : {01/01/1601 00:00:00}
EmailAddress :
EmployeeID :
EmployeeNumber :
Enabled : True
Fax :
GivenName :
HomeDirectory :
HomedirRequired : False
HomeDrive :
HomePage :
HomePhone :
Initials :
instanceType : 4
isDeleted :
KerberosEncryptionType : {}
LastBadPasswordAttempt :
LastKnownParent :
lastLogoff : 0
lastLogon : 0
LastLogonDate :
LockedOut : False
logonCount : 0
LogonWorkstations :
Manager :
MemberOf : {}
MNSLogonAccount : False
MobilePhone :
Modified : 18/11/2016 11:03:02
modifyTimeStamp : 18/11/2016 11:03:02
msDS-User-Account-Control-Computed : 8388608
Name : FOX Fred
nTSecurityDescriptor : System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectorySecurity
ObjectCategory : CN=Person,CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC=Manticore,DC=org
ObjectClass : user
ObjectGUID : db5a3975-980d-4749-b9c0-48aff9217b2a
objectSid : S-1-5-21-759617655-3516038109-1479587680-1314
Office :
OfficePhone :
Organization :
OtherName :
PasswordExpired : True
PasswordLastSet : 17/11/2016 14:07:13
PasswordNeverExpires : False
PasswordNotRequired : False
POBox :
PostalCode :
PrimaryGroup : CN=Domain Users,CN=Users,DC=Manticore,DC=org
primaryGroupID : 513
PrincipalsAllowedToDelegateToAccount : {}
ProfilePath :
ProtectedFromAccidentalDeletion : False
pwdLastSet : 131238652330182673
SamAccountName : foxfred
sAMAccountType : 805306368
ScriptPath :
sDRightsEffective : 15
ServicePrincipalNames : {}
SID : S-1-5-21-759617655-3516038109-1479587680-1314
SIDHistory : {}
SmartcardLogonRequired : False
State :
StreetAddress :
Surname :
Title :
TrustedForDelegation : False
TrustedToAuthForDelegation : False
UseDESKeyOnly : False
userAccountControl : 512
userCertificate : {}
UserPrincipalName : FredFox@manticore.org
uSNChanged : 78123
uSNCreated : 62259
whenChanged : 18/11/2016 11:03:02
whenCreated : 17/11/2016 14:07:13
Using –properties * returns ALL of the properties of a user. That’s OK if you’re looking at one, or a few users, but becomes a very expensive operation if you’re looking at thousands of user objects.
A more elegant approach is to specify the properties you want:
PS> Get-ADUser -Identity foxfred -Properties EmailAddress, LockedOut, ProtectedFromAccidentalDeletion, whenCreated
DistinguishedName : CN=FOX Fred,OU=UserAccounts,DC=Manticore,DC=org
EmailAddress :
Enabled : True
GivenName :
LockedOut : False
Name : FOX Fred
ObjectClass : user
ObjectGUID : db5a3975-980d-4749-b9c0-48aff9217b2a
ProtectedFromAccidentalDeletion : False
SamAccountName : foxfred
SID : S-1-5-21-759617655-3516038109-1479587680-1314
Surname :
UserPrincipalName : FredFox@manticore.org
whenCreated : 17/11/2016 14:07:13
You get the properties you specified and the default properties.
So, while Get-ADUser doesn’t display all properties you can overcome this by using the –properties parameter with a * for all properties or a list of the properties you want in addition to the defaults.
Filtering of Objects and Properties
Published February 11, 2017Saw a post on the forum today that suggests people are still confused about how to perform filtering of objects and properties in PowerShell.
As with so much in PowerShell explanations are always better with examples.
Let’s start with the physical disks in a computer:
PS> Get-PhysicalDisk FriendlyName SerialNumber CanPool OperationalStatus HealthStatus Usage Size ------------ ------------ ------- ----------------- ------------ ----- ---- Toshiba USB 2.0 Ext. HDD WD-WCAMR3209671 False OK Healthy Auto-Select 298.09 GB ST916082 1A DEF10E8D9B36 False OK Healthy Auto-Select 149.05 GB Samsung SSD 840 PRO Series S1AXNSAF329511V False OK Healthy Auto-Select 476.94 GB
If you want to objects that match a specific criteria – for instance disk is larger than 300GB:
PS> Get-PhysicalDisk | Where-Object Size -gt 300GB FriendlyName SerialNumber CanPool OperationalStatus HealthStatus Usage Size ------------ ------------ ------- ----------------- ------------ ----- ---- Samsung SSD 840 PRO Series S1AXNSAF329511V False OK Healthy Auto-Select 476.94 GB
Where-Object is your friend.
What you’re actually doing – though very few people actually write it like this – is
Get-PhysicalDisk | Where-Object -Property Size -GT -Value 300GB
The help file for Where-Object lists the possible operators.
You can also show the original style syntax
Get-PhysicalDisk | Where-Object -FilterScript {$_.Size -gt 300GB}
Normal usage is to not write the –FilterScript parameter so it becomes
Get-PhysicalDisk | Where-Object {$_.Size -gt 300GB}
$_ represents the object currently on the pipeline. If you need to use multiply conditions in your filter you’ll need to use the older style syntax.
So far you’ve seen how reduce the number of objects on the pipeline. Where-Object filters out those that don’t match the given criteria.
If you want to reduce the number of properties that the objects on the pipeline possess you’ll need to use Select-Object
PS> Get-PhysicalDisk | Select-Object -Property FriendlyName, HealthStatus, Size FriendlyName HealthStatus Size ------------ ------------ ---- Toshiba USB 2.0 Ext. HDD Healthy 320072933376 ST916082 1A Healthy 160041885696 Samsung SSD 840 PRO Series Healthy 512110190592
More commonly written as
Get-PhysicalDisk | Select FriendlyName, HealthStatus, Size
PowerShell best practice is always to use the full cmdlet and parameter names in your scripts. The *-Object cmdlets and in particular Where-Object, Sort-Object and Select-Object are often abbreviated to Where, Sort and Select and the parameters only used where necessary. This was the way I was advised to use them by Jeffrey Snover – who invented PowerShell - when I wrote PowerShell in Practice. Good enough for me.
PowerShell Summit 2017 – – more seats available
Published February 9, 2017After selling out in record time we’ve managed to squeeze a few more seats in after discussion with the conference centre.
Those seats are live now.
They are very definitely, the absolute last set of seats we’ll be able to add this year.
First come – First served. When they’re gone – they’re gone
PowerShell Summit 2017–sold out
Published February 9, 2017We sold the last seat for the 2017 Summit - https://eventloom.com/event/home/summit2017 yesterday.
If, and its a very big if, more seats become available we'll notify you though the event web site and on powershell.org
PowerShell on Linux installs
Published February 1, 2017PowerShell on Linux installs are now easier as you can use the Linux package management tools to download and update PowerShell Core 6.0