PowerWF

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Exporting a Hyper-V virtual machine using PowerShell

I know I'm a little VMware-centric when it comes to PowerShell and virtualization. This shouldn't be too surprising with the features of PowerCLI combined with our PowerVI VMware tool.  

I thought I would venture off that path with a blog post I found by Ben Armstrong that explains how to export a Hyper-V virtual machine using PowerShell -

I need to automate the process of exporting a virtual machine recently – and when I checked around I found that while there are a number of sample scripts out there that show you how to do this (some even on this blog) they are all written in VBScript.  As I am now to the stage where PowerShell is my preferred scripting language – I sat down and wrote up this short script:

(read more and get script)

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Domain Groups and PowerShell

Jason Hofferle has a nice post on Adding Domain Groups to Local Administrators Group with PowerShell.  Basically Jason ran into a problem adding domain groups with long names using NET.EXE, so he had to come up with a PowerShell solution.

That’s right, the NET.EXE /ADD command does not support names longer than 20 characters. If net localgroup /add is being used in a computer startup script, the groups with long names just won’t be added.

So the traditional batch file startup script was replaced with a PowerShell startup script,

(read more and get script)

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Deep Dive on what should be a simple cmdlet

Under the Stairs has a rather deep dive into the Get-ChildItem cmdlet.  You would think that a PowerShell cmdlet that is used as often as Get-ChildItem wouldn't have many secrets or gotcha's, but Thomas points out several items that are easy to forget.

I saw a good question the other day in the PowerShell.Com Learn PowerShell Forum which related to using –Include when calling Get-ChildItem (or DIR, or LS!). The OP had a bunch of files in a folder (C:\Data) and wanted to get at just the *.txt files as follows:

Get-ChildItem –Path C:\Data –Include *.Txt

But it did not work – it returned no files at all (even though there were some in the folder. The reason is clear if you read the great help text closely: the Include switch is only active if you are also using the –Recurse parameter! Another small to make is that the –include property specifies a globbed string (I.e. a file name specified with Wild cards) and not a regular expression.

The simplest way to just get the text files form a single folder would be:

Get-ChildItem –Path C:\Data\*.Txt

Another way to get just the Text files in a given folder would be to use the –Filter parameter. The –Filter parameter  is sent to the provider and is used to qualify the –Path value. You can call it like:

(read more and get more sample code)

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PowerShell Module for Splunk

Add Splunk to the list of products that can be managed by PowerShell. Splunk is used to monitor software applications, systems and infrastructures.  According to their blog, they are previewing a PowerShell module as well.

Earlier this week Splunk launched a preview of the PowerShell Resource Kit on Github. It is designed to help Splunk admins who want to automate administration of their Splunk deployments, but also has some pretty cool recipes for integrating Active Directory with Splunk, forwarding alerts and other data to Microsoft’s System Center Operations Manager, and performing a rudimentary topology discovery via an automated Splunk search with PowerShell.

Many of Splunk’s customers monitor very large Windows environments that have hundreds if not thousands of Universal Forwarders. They also use Active Directory for authentication, policy management and general asset organization. It turns out that they also use PowerShell extensively. So, why not develop a Splunk module for PowerShell?

(read more and get sample code)

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Poll: PowerWF, PowerSE and .NET 4.0

Do you think we should increase the minimum requirement for PowerWF/PowerSE to .NET 4.0?

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Intel has produced a new video that discusses their new Intel® vPro™ Technology Module for Microsoft Windows Powershell

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PowerShell to submit SQLServicePack job to multiple Server

Max Trinidad at The PowerShell Front had an interesting post that I've been meaning to link to - "QuickBlog – Use PowerShell to submit SQLServicePack job to multiple Server"

 I just confirmed that’s possible to submit an unattended SQL ServicePack installer as a job using PowerShell Remoting. I’m using my Hyper-V Virtual Domain I ran the script from a Windows 7 VM and submitted one job to two servers. I could see the the jobs processing on the server Task Manager.

But, it was tedious? If you’re a newbie maybe it’s a little over your head but not impossible. That’s the intention of PowerShell Remoting, to be able to do these things like this, and I’m just scratching the surface. Please, Take advantage of these features in PS V2.0, and more enhancements has been done in PS v3.0 with the inclusion of Workflows.

Still, you will need to use PowerShell “Enable-PSRemoting -force” in all the servers. I know, this may be an issue but you need to configure it on all the servers in order to take advantage of PowerShell Remoting. Now, I’m creating session on each computer so I can run as jobs, and your credential is Important to be included. All this is done from your desktop, no more running to the server room.

(read more)

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Multiplying Strings in PowerShell

One feature of PowerShell has always baffled me; why would anyone ever want to multiply a string?  Of course Scripting Guy Ed Wilson had a use case for it.

One of the really cool things that I use the string multiplication trick to do is to create an underline that is exactly the same length as the string it highlights. To do this, I use the Length property of the string and supply that to the multiplication operator along with the desired line separator to use. In the code that follows, I assign a string to the variable $a. Next, I use the Length property, which is a property that always exists on System.String objects, to determine the length of the string. I use the length of the string to determine how many times I want to multiply the underscore character (“_”). Next I display the string, and finally, I display the newly created underline. The code is shown here.

(read more and view code)

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2012 PowerShell Scripting Games

Are you playing in the 2012 PowerShell Scripting Games?

There will be two categories: Beginner and Advanced. Just like last year, the beginner’s division is really for beginners. If you have been wanting to learn Windows PowerShell, but you did not know how to go about it, you definitely need to sign up for the 2012 Scripting Games to give yourself a bit of added incentive. If you want to take your skills to the next level, you will want to participate in the advanced category.

In a major departure from previous rules, if you want to compete by using the beta version of Windows PowerShell 3.0, you are welcome to use it. You will be limited to the most recent version that is publically available, and you must specify that when you submit your scripts.

I will be putting together the finishing touches on the Study Guide for the 2012 Scripting Games to help you in your study and preparation for the games. The Study Guide will be available on February 5, 2012.

(read more)

The Scripting Games start on April 2nd. Let us know if you play, and be sure to use your favorite PowerShell editor, PowerSE as you join in the fun.

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Disabling a View Pool with PowerCLI

Rob Daniels at ClearPath Solutions Group has an interesting post on disabling a view pool for VMware.  He points out that there isn't currently a PowerCLI command to do it, but came up with a PowerShell solution anyway.

Have you ever wanted to disable a VDI pool from the command line, but couldn’t find the right command for the job? As simple as it may seem to do, VMware has yet to equip the PowerCLI Snap-in with a “disable-pool” commandlet. Some may try to accommodate this by simply removing pool entitlements, but you can be faced with the following error:

Remove-PoolEntitlement : PowershellService::RemovePoolEntitlement FAILED, 

error=User with sid has an active VDI Session on Pool . Entitlement cannot be 

removed until this session is terminated.  

This error is the result of an active desktop session attached to the entitlement being removed, or worse, anywhere within the VDI system as this is a global property. What this means is that if a user has an entitlement to more than one pool, this command may fail every time. As a work-around, there is a value within the local ADAM database on the View broker server. It is a Boolean value with the name “pae-Disabled” and can be found in the vdi.vmware.int\Applications\ attribute of the local LDAP. Below is an example of how this value can be toggled from a script:

(read more and get script)

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PowerShell Implicit Remoting and VMware

Jason Hofferle has a nice post that discusses using PowerShell implicit remoting to take advantage VMware's View cmdlets when you aren't on the connection server.

One of the differences between the VMware View cmdlets and PowerCLI is that the View cmdlets can only be run on the connection server itself. Despite the lack of a Connect-VIServer equivalent, with PowerShell Implicit Remoting it’s still possible to use these cmdlets from a workstation.

First, PowerShell Remoting needs to be enabled on the Connection Server. There are several ways to configure remoting, but in a domain environment I like to turn it on with group policy. Enabling the automatic configuration of listeners is usually all the configuration necessary to enable remoting on a domain server, but lots of information is available for different situations.

(read more and get sample code)

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Best Practices for Developing and Presenting SLA Information

I saw that PowerWF champion Chris Ross is giving a presentation on SLA's (Service Level Agreements) in System Center on Thursday.

In this co-hosted webinar, Chris Ross from Catapult Systems will join Rob Reyes from Bay Dynamics.Topics will include:

What is an SLA .. really

Best Practices for developing SLAs for your System Center infrastructure

Leveraging the power of Service Manager

Presenting SLAs and metrics with IT Analytics’ Key Performance Indicators and dashboards

Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/574414905

Power of IT Analytics Series: Best Practices for Developing and Presenting SLA information

Date:     Thursday, February 2, 2012

Time:     10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PST

(read more)

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PowerShell Scheduling

Jeffery Hicks is working on a PowerShell scheduler that looks pretty promising.

Today’s Friday Fun is a continuation of my exploration of ways to use Start-Job. A few weeks ago I wrote about using Start-Job to create “scheduled” tasks. I realized I could take this further and turn this into a sort of alarm clock. The goal is to execute at command at a given time, but I wanted to make it easy to specify the time. What I have so far is a function called New-Alarm. I have some other ideas and hope to expand this into a module, but for now I thought I’d toss this out to you and get some feedback.

(read more)

By the way, if you are using PowerWF, it includes an agent that makes it easy to schedule your PowerShell scripts or workflows to run an a specific schedule (Every so many minutes, every Wednesday, etc.)

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PowerShell Function Primer

Richard Siddaway at IT Knowledge Exchange answers a very basic question that many new PowerShell scripters run into - Once I create a function, how do I use it.

Most of my scripts end up being functions because I will eventually combine them into modules

My recent script

function get-logedonuser { param ( [string]$computername = $env:COMPUTERNAME ) Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_LogonSession -ComputerName $computername | foreach { $data = $_ $id = $data.__RELPATH -replace """", "'" $q = "ASSOCIATORS OF {$id} WHERE ResultClass = Win32_Account" Get-WmiObject -ComputerName $computername -Query $q | select @{N="User";E={$($_.Caption)}}, @{N="LogonTime";E={$data.ConvertToDateTime($data.StartTime)}} } }

Prompted a comment about how could you run this script.

First off I would save it to a file – get-logedonuser.ps1

You can then either

(read more)

If you are running PowerWF, it is very easy to leverage a function you find on the internet.  Simply paste the function into a script block in the workflow and then either call it from that script block or from elsewhere in your workflow.

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PowerWF v2.7 Released

Devfarm Software, a Windows 8 Launch Partner, today announced the release of version 2.7 of the award winning PowerWF. With this release, PowerWF begins the transition from a popular PowerShell workflow orchestration tool to a complete windows automation platform.

For the past 3 years PowerWF has seamlessly combined Windows PowerShell with Workflow technologies to provide users with PowerShell Orchestration. PowerWF provides a rich automation platform that lets IT Administrators harness the strengths and versatility of Windows PowerShell with a workflow Orchestration layer required to cross technical disciplines.

The latest version of PowerWF provides instant return on investment with one-click automation solutions for many common IT and VMware administrative tasks. The solutions can be run as-is, or easily modified using PowerWF’s visual authoring environment.

“The focus of this release has been jump starting the automation process,” said Ben Vierck, CTO of Devfarm Software. “We want our users to see the value of automation as soon as they launch the product.”

“PowerWF has always provided a powerful authoring environment,” added PowerWF Product Manager Kirk Munro. “This version ensures that users gain the benefits of automation even before exploring PowerWF’s authoring experience.”

PowerWF’s new features include:

    New Start Page - Immediately run dozens of automation workflows included with the product and leverage the power of Workflow and PowerShell without requiring the technical knowledge behind the automation scripts.

    Improved Microsoft System Center Service Manager (SCSM) support - Deploy management packs right from the Start Page. Management Packs for SCSM include: automatically close resolved incidents; expire inactive problem announcements; cancel pending activities for closed change requests; identify problems from incident trends; notify incident authors about unresolved incidents; and retrieving SCSM statistics.

    Improved Toolbox Search - search using command names or keywords.

PowerSE’s new features include:

    Easier Breakpoint Management - Breakpoints pane shows all breakpoints set in the scripting environment. Manage breakpoints using the breakpoint cmdlets.

    Breakpoints Preserved Across Sessions - Allows continued debugging of PowerShell scripts from one session to the next, even if the file is closed inside PowerSE.

    Improved Help Search - search using keywords topic headings. PowerSE includes a keyword search in command descriptions to allow users to discover commands using related terms, such as “vMotion”.

(view press release)

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Alan Renouf has a new video that shows how to use the new PowerCLI cmdlets for vCloud director.

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VMware Cluster Capacity Check

Jonathan Medd has posted another useful PowerShell/PowerCLI script.  This time he is looking at Cluster storage capacity.

I recently needed to provide a high level capacity overview per VMware cluster looking at some metrics of interest that were being used as a guide to the capacity state of a cluster. Note: these are by no means definitive or the ones you should be using in your environment, but for these purposes they met the requirements. The metrics I looked at per cluster were the ratio of vCPUs to pCPUs, the amount of Effective, Allocated and average Active Memory and the amount of Free Diskspace.

(read more and download script)

As is usually the case, it would be very straight forward to convert this script to a PowerWF workflow or a PowerVI script so that you can run it from your vSphere client.