<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>Articles from June 2016 on PowerShell.org - Welcome Automaters!https://powershell.org/articles/2016/06/Recent content in Articles from June 2016 on PowerShell.org - Welcome Automaters!Hugoen-usTo ping or not to ping..The PowerShell wayhttps://powershell.org/articles/2016-06-27-to-ping-or-not-to-ping-the-powershell-way/https://powershell.org/articles/2016-06-27-to-ping-or-not-to-ping-the-powershell-way/Mon, 27 Jun 2016 20:29:29 +0000<p>As this is my first blog here, here’s a bit about me. I’m a current lead SCCM Admin in the UK, and have found this great enjoyment for PowerShell in the last 18 months. I’ve started my own blog, <a href="http://www.get-configmgr-content.co.uk/">http://www.get-configmgr-content.co.uk/</a>, to share my passion. The chance to blog on Powershell.org was too exciting not to do!<br> The inspiration for this blog came from a forum post on Powershell.org that I helped contributed on. The question asked was, how to display the name of failed ping, i.e. $computer is offline.<br> There were some great responses, the one I most liked which I slightly amended into a function was:</p><![CDATA[

As this is my first blog here, here’s a bit about me. I’m a current lead SCCM Admin in the UK, and have found this great enjoyment for PowerShell in the last 18 months. I’ve started my own blog,http://www.get-configmgr-content.co.uk/, to share my passion. The chance to blog on Powershell.org was too exciting not to do!
The inspiration for this blog came from a forum post on Powershell.org that I helped contributed on. The question asked was, how to display the name of failed ping, i.e. $computer is offline.
There were some great responses, the one I most liked which I slightly amended into a function was:

function test-ping { $args | % {[pscustomobject]@{online = test-connection $_ -Count 1 -quiet;computername = $_}} }The simplicity and power is brilliant. (Credit to Dan Potter!)
I expanded on this and came up with a way to use the results in several different ways. All this by the power of advanced functions.
I have two advanced functions ‘ValueFromPipeline’ and ‘ValidateSet’ in this script:

  1. ‘ValueFromPipeline’ gives the capability to pass more than one object to our script. Perfect for passing one or many devices.
    Other than the message “Online: PC1”, I wanted to be able to use the ping status to pass to another cmdlet, collate all online or offline devices and display the results in a table.
  2. Using‘ValidateSet’ I could define my options, “Online”,“Offline” and “ObjectTable”. But by not setting the parameter to mandatory, you don’t have to use the additional options.
    To continue using the ping response, I needed to hold them somewhere. I did this by creating an empty array in the Begin block and append each ping response to it.
    Regardless of what option I choose, if any, the below block of code will always run:

$device| foreach { if (Test-Connection $_ -Count 1 -Quiet) { if(-not($GetObject)){write-host -ForegroundColor green "Online: $_ "} $Hash = $Hash += @{Online="$_"} }else{ if(-not($GetObject)){write-host -ForegroundColor Red "Offline: $_ "} $Hash = $Hash += @{Offline="$_"} } }Devices in the variable, $device, will each be ‘pinged’ then passed through a ‘if’ statement depending on offline or online status and get added into the $hash array variable.
DISCLAIMER: I should apologies to Don here for killing the puppies with write-host. I wanted to just push out some colored output to the host only!
Before I go any further, let me briefly explain how I am ‘pinging’ the devices. I am using the cmdlet ‘Test-Connection’. The synopsis on ‘get-help’ for test-connection states, ‘Sends ICMP echo request packets (“pings”) to one or more computers.’ A nice feature of this cmdlet is the ‘-quiet’ syntax. This is cool as it gives a Boolean result (True or False) of the ‘ping’ status. By adding a ‘-count’ as well I can limit the number of times I request a connection check. Now I can pass as many devices through the pipeline to my function and get an online or offline message pretty quickly.
The second half of the script only runs if you add the ‘$getObject’ option from the function. The use of the ‘validateSet’ allows me to make sure the three options I defined are used only.
The data collected in the $hash array variable is passed through a foreach statement and creates customobjects. The final part is use of a ‘Switch’. Depending on what was chosen in the $getObject parameter is the output at the end of the script.
The advantage to this switch is I can pass all the online PC’s to something else via the pipeline. For example, an AD group or a deployment collection:

'PC1','PC2' | Get-PingStatus -GetObject Online | # pass to another cmdletCapture the ‘online’ PC’s to a variable and use:

$Online = 'PC1','PC2' | Get-PingStatus -GetObject OnlineOr if you need to report back a list of PC’s which are either on or offline in an object group:

`‘PC1’,‘PC2’, ‘PC3’,‘PC4 | Get-PingStatus -GetObject objectTable DeviceName Online offline

pc4 Online pc1 Offline pc2 Offline pc3 Offline `Again this script has great flexibility in how you pass the device objects.
Say you have a list of PC’s in a txt for CSV file, you can use Get-content and pipe it to Get-PingStatus:

get-content pcs.csv | Get-PingStatusNOTE:
The use of the $Global: variable allowed me to use $Global:Objects once the script has complete. Just something I thought could be useful. The $Script: variable would have worked fine should I not want to use the variable outside the script.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my blog and I welcome any comments. I’ve posted the script on GitHub should you wish to download.
https://github.com/Gbeer7/GetPingStatus.git
The full script:

Function Get-PingStatus { param( [Parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$true)] [string]$device, [validateSet("Online","Offline","ObjectTable")] [String]$getObject ) begin{ $hash = @() } process{ $device| foreach { if (Test-Connection $_ -Count 1 -Quiet) { if(-not($GetObject)){write-host -ForegroundColor green "Online: $_ "} $Hash = $Hash += @{Online="$_"} }else{ if(-not($GetObject)){write-host -ForegroundColor Red "Offline: $_ "} $Hash = $Hash += @{Offline="$_"} } } } end { if($GetObject) { $Global:Objects = $Hash | foreach { [PSCustomObject]@{ DeviceName = $_.Values| foreach { "$_" } Online = $_.Keys| where {$_ -eq "Online"} offline = $_.Keys| where {$_ -eq "Offline"} } } Switch -Exact ($GetObject) { 'Online' { $Global:Objects| where 'online'| select -ExpandProperty DeviceName } 'Offline' { $Global:Objects| where 'offline'| select -ExpandProperty DeviceName } 'ObjectTable' { return $Global:Objects } } } } }

]]>Here's What You've Missed at PowerShell.org (and what's coming)https://powershell.org/articles/2016-06-24-heres-what-youve-missed-at-powershell-org-and-whats-coming/https://powershell.org/articles/2016-06-24-heres-what-youve-missed-at-powershell-org-and-whats-coming/Fri, 24 Jun 2016 17:19:59 +0000<p>We&rsquo;ve been making a ton of improvements at PowerShell.org&hellip; if you haven&rsquo;t visited in a while, it might be worth a stop by.<br> **First, **if you&rsquo;re hitting any of the links below and getting a 404, the most common culprit seems to be an over-zealous corporate proxy cache. Try clearing it, or doing a Shift+Reload in your browser. Confirm by visiting from a non-proxied network, like at home.<br> Our <a href="https://powershell.org/learning/">eBooks</a> page has a bunch of new content, and our books are now available in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB from two providers (LeanPub and GitBook). You can also read books online in HTML.<br> Site members now have an extensive profile that you can complete, and doing so is one step on our short <a href="https://powershell.org/mission/welcome-aboard/">Welcome Aboard! mission</a> that will earn you a new &ldquo;Welcome!&rdquo; badge on the site. It&rsquo;s one of many new <a href="https://powershell.org/achievements/">achievements you can earn</a> for participating in the community in a variety of ways.<br> And have you seen our new <a href="https://powershell.org/learning/">videos</a>? In addition to tons of YouTube videos that include workshops, tutorials, and Summit recordings, we also have started new short-subject, structured learning series - entire courses that even award a certificate of completion when you&rsquo;re done!<br> But there&rsquo;s much more we can do to help you connect with community, so we&rsquo;re taking a quick survey. Here&rsquo;s some of what we can enable:</p><![CDATA[

We’ve been making a ton of improvements at PowerShell.org… if you haven’t visited in a while, it might be worth a stop by.
**First, **if you’re hitting any of the links below and getting a 404, the most common culprit seems to be an over-zealous corporate proxy cache. Try clearing it, or doing a Shift+Reload in your browser. Confirm by visiting from a non-proxied network, like at home.
OureBooks page has a bunch of new content, and our books are now available in PDF, MOBI, and EPUB from two providers (LeanPub and GitBook). You can also read books online in HTML.
Site members now have an extensive profile that you can complete, and doing so is one step on our shortWelcome Aboard! mission that will earn you a new “Welcome!” badge on the site. It’s one of many newachievements you can earn for participating in the community in a variety of ways.
And have you seen our newvideos? In addition to tons of YouTube videos that include workshops, tutorials, and Summit recordings, we also have started new short-subject, structured learning series - entire courses that even award a certificate of completion when you’re done!
But there’s much more we can do to help you connect with community, so we’re taking a quick survey. Here’s some of what we can enable:

  • **Friend Connections. **Kinda like Facebook, enabling you to track on-site activity of the people you “follow.”
  • **Private Messages. **Just what it says - everyone would have a mailbox inside PowerShell.org.
  • **Activity Streams. **Similar to a Twitter or Facebook feed, a way of seeing site activity (with its own RSS). Threaded comments, @mentions, and email notifications, too.
  • **User Groups. **The ability to create in-site groups with their own discussion forum, activity stream, and shared content.
  • **REST API. **A way of communicating with WordPress via REST calls, to retrieve or check content.

Visit the survey to let us know which ones you’d want, or don’t care about.
And drop a comment below if there’s something else you’d like to see or share!

]]>High-Level: Designing Your PowerShell Command Sethttps://powershell.org/articles/2016-06-20-high-level-designing-your-powershell-command-set/https://powershell.org/articles/2016-06-20-high-level-designing-your-powershell-command-set/Mon, 20 Jun 2016 10:27:41 +0000<p>So you&rsquo;ve decided to write a bunch of commands to help automate the administration of ____. Awesome! Let&rsquo;s try and make sure you get off on the right path, with this high-level overview of command design.</p> <h2 id="start-with-an-inventory" class="ps-heading">Start with an inventory<a class="ps-heading-anchor" href="#start-with-an-inventory" aria-label="Link to this section" title="Link to this section"><i class="fas fa-link" aria-hidden="true"></i></a> </h2> <p>You&rsquo;ll need to start by deciding _what commands to write, _and an inventory is often the best way to begin. Start by inventorying your nouns. For example, suppose you&rsquo;re writing a command set for some internal order-management system. You probably have nouns like Customer, Employee, Order, OrderItem, CustomerAddress, and so on. Write &rsquo;em all down in an Excel spreadsheet, one noun per row.<br> Then inventory your verbs. For each noun, what can you do with it? For example, you can probably create orders, so a New-Order command will be needed. Make a &ldquo;New&rdquo; column in your spreadsheet, and put an &ldquo;X&rdquo; in the row next to the Order noun. However, you probably can&rsquo;t <em>remove</em> an order from the system, so although your spreadsheet might have a &ldquo;Remove&rdquo; column to cover things like Remove-Employee, that column won&rsquo;t get an &ldquo;X&rdquo; in the Order row. Orders might be voidable, though, so what&rsquo;s a good verb for that? <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms714428(v=vs.85).aspx">https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms714428(v=vs.85).aspx</a> has the official verb list, but there&rsquo;s no &ldquo;Void&rdquo; or &ldquo;Cancel&rdquo; that seems appropriate. Don&rsquo;t go making up new verbs!!! Instead, it might be that Set-Order could be the answer, enabling approved changes to orders, including cancelling them (but retaining the record).<br> Finally, pick a prefix for your nouns. If your order system is named &ldquo;Order Awesomeness,&rdquo; then maybe OAwe is a good noun prefix, as in Set-OAweOrder. The prefix will help keep your command names from bumping up against other people&rsquo;s, so making sure that noun prefix is pretty unique&hellip; is pretty important.</p><![CDATA[

So you’ve decided to write a bunch of commands to help automate the administration of ____. Awesome! Let’s try and make sure you get off on the right path, with this high-level overview of command design.

Start with an inventory