Category Archives: Uncategorized

09.25.17
by

How do I practice PowerShell?

“How do I stay in touch with PowerShell practice?”
Yes, this is one question is surely asked in all my PowerShell batches.
It’s obvious that people get overwhelmed with capabilities of PowerShell and wonder how do I keep practising. The biggest question is where do I start?

Well!!! PowerShell can answer that, PowerShell can solve that for you with following steps,

  1. Update-Help
  2. $PROFILE (Set up your PowerShell profile)
  3. Get-Help (Automated)

Lets try to understand more about the solution.

Step 1 – Update-Help

  • Update-Help cmdlet downloads the newest help files for Windows PowerShell modules and installs them on your computer.
  • You do not have to restart Windows PowerShell to make the change effective.
  • With this you will also get several about_* topics downloaded on your computer at C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\en-US and inside modules where latest help manuals are available.
  • This will lay the foundation for further steps.

Step 2 – $PROFILE

  • The $Profile automatic variable stores the paths to the Windows PowerShell profiles that are available in the current session.
  • A Windows PowerShell profile is a script that runs when Windows PowerShell starts.
  • You can use the profile as a logon script to customise the environment.
  • You can add commands, aliases, functions, variables, snap-ins, modules, and Windows PowerShell drives.
  • You can also add other session-specific elements to your profile so they are available in every session without having to import or re-create them.
  • Windows PowerShell supports several profiles for users and host programs. However, it does not create the profiles for you by default.
  • The Windows PowerShell console supports the following basic profile files. The profiles are listed in precedence order. The first profile has the highest precedence.

 

Different PowerShell Profiles

Different PowerShell Profiles

HOW TO CREATE A PROFILE :

To create a profile for the current user in the current Windows PowerShell host application, use the following command:

if (!(test-path $profile)) {

new-item -type file -path $profile -force

}

HOW TO EDIT A PROFILE:

You can use either of the following options at PowerShell prompt

  • Option 1 
notepad $profile

opens profile file in notepad to edit.

  • Option 2
ISE $profile

opens profile file in PowerShell ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) to edit.

ADD FOLLOWING CODE TO A PROFILE:

help about_* | 

ForEach-Object{

if (($_.Split())[0] -match 'about_'){

($_.Split())[0]

}

} |

Select-Object @{n='name';e={$_}} |

Get-Random |

Get-Help -ShowWindow

SAVE PROFILE CHANGES AND EXIT

Step 3 – Just Open PowerShell to Get-Help

The above code will execute every time you open PowerShell.

Technically,
- It pulls all the about topics
- Filters empty line and header row 
- From the output and just get the topic name as about_[topic] string
- Get-Random picks a random about_topic and passes to Get-Help
- Get-Help opens a topic in new window.
  • It will present you with one of the about_[topic] randomly. This will take out the burden of choosing topic.
  • Just make sure you read the presented topic at least for 5-10 minutes maximum.
  • I used to do this at least 3 times a day. Morning before starting work, just after lunch (before starting other work) and before I shutdown my computer at the end of the day.
  • So essentially minimum 15 minutes to maximum 30 minutes a day spent reading something about the PowerShell topics. Whenever I had extra time, I used to practice some of the examples from the about_topic.
  • This helped me register most of the topics in my head within 3-4 weeks of time.
  • Few years back, I was talking to someone on learning new skills and the person pointed out Rule Of 21 to me.
  • There are many articles if Google Or Bing it. Some of them even call it myth. I don’t want to talk PRO or CONS here about the same.
  • In my personal case it worked to gain good knowledge. Some of my participants also have responded that it was a helpful tip.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Food for thought: If you want to plan focused learning in every week, then you can extend the code. Have a starting and ending date. At the launch check if current dates falls in First, Second or Third week or more. Depending on that Get a random topic from the focused bucket.
i.e. Below command will select one command randomly from module NetAdapter. This was you can focus only on commands from selected module/area of learning.

Get-Command -Module NetAdapter | Get-Random | Select-Object Name

*Replace the Select-Object with Get-Help and you will get the help file.

That’s it for now.

If you like this tip do share your feedback. If you try this and find valuable, then do write me to with your experience.

All the best and enjoy PowerShell Scripting!!!

01.16.17
by

Get-CloudManagementTools

This PowerShell script can be used to download some of the common cloud (Azure and AWS) management tools available on Windows Platform.

Earlier I had seen Download and Install SharePoint 2013 Prerequisites on Windows Server 2012.  However this technet script uses Start-BitsTransfer cmdlet from BitsTransfer module. I was toying with similar idea while working on my last workshop (Cloud Automation Using PowerShell) preparation. Since some of the URLs do redirect the Start-BitsTransfer wasn’t working for me initially.

I started with simple Invoke-WebRequest cmdlet and added second variation to handle redirected URLs and pass it to Start-BitsTransfer. So let’s go through the script and output for the both the approaches.

I am using Downloads directory to store the files. For demo I have created CloudTools folder inside. I already have AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell downloaded in the folder.

15012017-01

I am already into the working directory where the script is saved.

15012017-02

Started the script execution and you can notice it finds AWS Tools For Windows PowerShell and skips the download for it.

15012017-03

On my Windows Server 2012 R2 VM it created a CloudTools folder which was missing before download starts.

15012017-03-01

# The folder location where the downloads will be saved
$DestinationFolder = "$ENV:homedrive$env:homepath\Downloads\CloudTools"
If (!(Test-Path $DestinationFolder)){
 New-Item $DestinationFolder -ItemType Directory -Force
}

Download is in progress…

15012017-04

Before this, I have created hash table with Download URL and File Name After Downloaded

# Specify download url's for various cloud management tools. Do not change unless Microsoft changes the downloads themselves in future
$Downloads = @{
 # Latest Azure PowerShell
 # Github: https://github.com/Azure/azure-powershell/releases/latest
 # WebPI: https://www.microsoft.com/web/handlers/webpi.ashx/getinstaller/WindowsAzurePowershellGet.3f.3f.3fnew.appids
 "https://aka.ms/azure-powershellget2" = "$DestinationFolder\Azure-PowerShell.msi"; 
 # Latest Azure Storage Explorer
 "https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=708343" = "$DestinationFolder\StorageExplorer.exe";
 # Latest AZCopy
 "http://aka.ms/downloadazcopy" = "$DestinationFolder\MicrosoftAzureStorageTools.msi";
 # Latest Azure CLI
 "http://aka.ms/webpi-azure-cli" = "$DestinationFolder\Azure-cli.msi";
 # Azure Storage Emulator
 "https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=717179&clcid=0x409" = "$DestinationFolder\MicrosoftAzureStorageEmulator.msi";
 # Latest AWS Tools For Windows PowerShell
 "http://sdk-for-net.amazonwebservices.com/latest/AWSToolsAndSDKForNet.msi" = "$DestinationFolder\AWSToolsAndSDKForNet.msi";
 }

Approach 1 – using Invoke-WebRequest cmdlet ,

Then I have a function which loop through the elements in downloads hash table using Invoke-WebRequest cmdlet,

function DownloadFiles(){ 
 Write-Host ""
 Write-Host "====================================================================="
 Write-Host " Downloading Cloud Management Tools for Azure & AWS" 
 Write-Host "====================================================================="
 
 $ReturnCode = 0

$Downloads.GetEnumerator() | ForEach-Object { 
 $DownloadURL = $_.get_key()
 $Filespec = $_.get_value()
 # Get the file name based on the portion of the file path after the last slash 
 $FilePath = Split-Path $Filespec
 $FileName = Split-Path $Filespec -Leaf
 Write-Host "DOWNLOADING: $FileName"
 Write-Host " FROM: $DownloadURL"
 Write-Host " TO: $FilePath"
 
 Try 
 { 
 # Check if file already exists 
 If (!(Test-Path "$Filespec")) 
 { 
 # Begin download 
 Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $DownloadURL -OutFile "$Filespec" -ErrorVariable err
 If ($err) {Throw ""} 
 Write-Host " STATUS: Downloaded"
 Write-Host
 } 
 Else 
 { 
 Write-Host " STATUS: Already exists. Skipping." 
 Write-Host
 } 
 } 
 Catch 
 { 
 $ReturnCode = -1
 Write-Warning " AN ERROR OCCURRED DOWNLOADING `'$FileName`'" 
 Write-Error $_
 Break 
 }
} 
 return $ReturnCode 
}

and the downloads completed.

15012017-05

Approach 2 – using Start-BitsTransfer cmdlet,

First a function Get-RedirectedUrl to get redirected URL

# This function gets the end URL to avoid redirection in URL breaking the Start-BitsTransfer
# Courtesy: http://www.powershellmagazine.com/2013/01/29/pstip-retrieve-a-redirected-url/
Function Get-RedirectedUrl {
 Param (
 [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
 [String]$url
 )
 $request = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($url)
 $request.AllowAutoRedirect=$true
 try{
 $response=$request.GetResponse()
 $response.ResponseUri.AbsoluteUri
 $response.Close()
 }
 catch{
 “ERROR: $_”
 }
}

Then I have a function which loop through the elements in downloads hash table using Start-BitsTransfer cmdlet,

# Import Required Modules: BITS is used for file transfer
Import-Module BitsTransfer

function DownloadFiles(){ 
 Write-Host ""
 Write-Host "====================================================================="
 Write-Host " Downloading Cloud Management Tools for Azure & AWS" 
 Write-Host "====================================================================="
 
 $ReturnCode = 0

$Downloads.GetEnumerator() | ForEach-Object { 
 $DownloadURL = Get-RedirectedUrl -URL $_.get_key()
 $Filespec = $_.get_value()
 # Get the file name based on the portion of the file path after the last slash 
 $FilePath = Split-Path $Filespec
 $FileName = Split-Path $Filespec -Leaf
 Write-Host "DOWNLOADING: $FileName"
 Write-Host " FROM: $DownloadURL"
 Write-Host " TO: $FilePath"
 
 Try 
 { 
 # Check if file already exists 
 If (!(Test-Path "$Filespec")) 
 { 
 # Begin download 
 Start-BitsTransfer -Source $DownloadURL -Destination "$Filespec" -DisplayName "Downloading `'$FileName`' to $FilePath" -Priority High -Description "From $DownloadURL..." -ErrorVariable err 
 If ($err) {Throw ""} 
 Write-Host " STATUS: Downloaded"
 Write-Host
 } 
 Else 
 { 
 Write-Host " STATUS: Already exists. Skipping." 
 Write-Host
 } 
 } 
 Catch 
 { 
 $ReturnCode = -1
 Write-Warning " AN ERROR OCCURRED DOWNLOADING `'$FileName`'" 
 Write-Error $_
 Break 
 }

} 
 return $ReturnCode 
}

while downloading the progress bar looks different,

15012017-06

I had deleted 2 files and ran the script again and following is the output,

15012017-07

If you want to know more about BITSTransfer & PowerShell you can refer this How to copy files with BITS using PowerShell

You can try both variation scripts by downloading from my (cloudscripts) github. I will be updating it later for more tools.

That’s it for now.