PowerShell

TechGuy215

Just curious how many of my fellow TE members use PowerShell in their environment. I tend to use it only for Exchange maintenance/updating.

So....Do you use PowerShell? and for what purposes?

NovaHax

I use powershell for nearly all of my windows post-exploitation scripts. As far as windows scripting languages go...I really like it. There is a surprising amount of common ground between powershell and bash shell commands too.

Back when I used to do support...I would use multithreaded powershell scripts to supplement our patching solution.

cruwl

I use it for anything super mundane, anything that would normally be a tedious by hand thing. Like editing tones of ADDS accounts or something like that.

I also use it from scripts, some times it has limitations and I have to go back to VBScripts. That might be my lack of knowledge though.

I really love when I can take a several page VBscript and write like 4 lines in powershell and call it done.

ptilsen

cruwl wrote: »

That might be my lack of knowledge though.

Yes.

cruwl wrote: »

I really love when I can take a several page VBscript and write like 4 lines in powershell and call it done.

This.

I don't use it every day, but I do use it a lot. There's really very little you can't do with it, and for anything more than a few lines, it tends to be quicker, easier, and more readable to do it in PowerShell than batch. I haven't written a VBscript in a while, and I only would if I needed to run PowerShell in a pre-Vista environment and couldn't or didn't want to deploy PowerShell. VBscript has absolutely no capabilities PowerShell doesn't, and lacks quite a bit it does.

N2IT

I've been working with ISE and trying to migrate my VBA knowledge using powershell. I am doing some basic stuff now just copying files etc. Hoping to grow that knowledge. I really like scripting.

lsud00d

I'm right there with you N2IT!

My server background is much more linux focused so it has been a relatively easy transition to powershell since I'm now in a largely Windows environment. I use the Exchange and AD modules most often.

The hardest part for me is knowing what I would want to do in Linux and then translating that to powershell, but at least I know what I want to do in the first place

N2IT

Not to derail the thread, but just curious let's say someone had strong Powershell scripting skills. What position could they go for in your opinion? I won't mention any so I don't taint the thread. I am curious to see what others come up with.

Qord

PS has become my go-to-tool when I'm too lazy to rdp onto a server or open up an mmc to it. Most of what I do is service and dhcp monitoring. I tend to not use too much set-whatever because I'm still a little scared, but I'm not afraid to work with file/folder ownership and acl's from within PS.

My current project is checking account activation across multiple domains, and emailing the person if there needs to be a change made. (We have three different "areas" an account gets created in, with the local domain being the last. Sometimes they activate an account prior to it being created in the local AD, which means they need to either de-activate and reactivate or change their password to force activation on our end along with password synchronization)

N2IT wrote: »

What position could they go for in your opinion?

I just see it as another tool for all windows it folks from helpdesk on up to systems engineers to use. A good tool at that!

ptilsen

A Windows "cloud" engineer, automation engineer, or devops engineer is going to need heavy PowerShell. I saw a couple job postings that were aligned very much around PS automation. Not that many, though. Not yet, anyway.

Nutsacjac

I use it to create users in AD and mailboxes in exchange using EMC.

I really need to deep dive and learn it better because it's not going away and is really useful.

DigitalZeroOne

I mainly use it with the PowerCLI snap-in for our vSphere 5.0 environment, I use it pretty much every day, for a number of tasks:

Updating VMware tools
Gathering and presenting data
vMotion VMs
Adding HD space to VMs

I could go on and on. My main regret is that I heard and had a two day class on Powershell many years ago, but at the time, I didn't see a use for it. It wasn't until about 2010 or so that I really started learning and using it.

tier~

I never really touched powershell til I moved into a sys admin role last year. Decided it would probably be beneficial if I could take most of the monotony out of all the maintenance in AD and Exchange that I deal with. Ended up doing the beginner powershell games with one of the other guys on my team last winter and it proved to be a great learning experience.

Since then I've built a graphical powershell tool that pretty much fully handles new user accounts, from AD creation through exchange and emailing their initial logon info to their supervisor. Dropped the account creation time by about 75%. If only some of the legacy app accounts could be automated or handled through SSO...

I've also got scripts that handle much of our quarterly audit reporting, message tracking in exchange, verifying permissions, group memberships, account tear down, etc. It's a powerful tool that's been pretty easy to learn and has made my job a boatload easier.


TechGuy, since you're in the Philly area do you go to the the Philly Powershell User Group? I've considered going but Malvern is just far enough away that driving in seems unreasonable.

undomiel

Using PoSH is definitely one of the fun parts of the job. I've built scripts for Exchange 2010 deployment (soon to be migrated to 2013) and lots of Exchange maintenance. It's also been put to use for things such as building router VPN configs and other redundant tasks. Outside of Exchange work I've used it for some AD automation, a fair bit of Hyper-V/VMware work and plugging into some Nagios monitors. I've always enjoyed programming so incorporating PoSH makes my day more enjoyable.

Chivalry1

PowerShell is very powerful I use it of everyday for multiple task. I come from a shell/bash Linux scripting background. So the ability to automate many of my daily task has been a great benefit. As some have mentioned about I utilize for:

Windows Servers Task
Microsoft Exchange Task
Hyper-V Tasks
Active Directory Task
Citrix Task

Kudos to Microsoft for developing an awesome language that is easy to learn and a name that is befitting "POWERSHELL".

the_Grinch

At my last job I used it to automate joining computers to the domain. Biggest thing I worked on was writing a script to backup a file, along with maintaining two weeks of backups (going as far as to overwrite older ones). TE members were very helpful in writing that script. Another time I used it to connect to 30 or so servers and pull the non-conventional usernames used to run services (Everyone helped me big time with that). Haven't seen any jobs in just Powershell, but I suspect anything in Windows Automation would require it.

N2IT

Grinch very cool task automated and worthwhile. Not just automating to do it, huge gains. Nice work!

blargoe

I learned powershell when I was an Exchange admin, but now I use it heavily in general Windows administration, VMware PowerCLI, Active Directory, and sometimes I even use the NetApp modules for Powershell. I have also used the Powershell for SQL Server in the past. There is some information that you can obtain from your systems much more quickly, and in a usable format, using Powershell rather than the GUI tools.

googol

From your experiences, what is the best way to learn Powershell? I have done the basic things, but nothing complex from scratch. I have combined multiple scripts, added features and functionality..I understand the fundamentals and logic as I have taken Java, visual basic programming courses in the past, but never got too involved. I know this is one of my weaknesses and I need to put some time into it. I bought the Learn Windows Powershell3 in a month of lunches book a while back, but been busy with other certifications, but now that I am done with VCP, thinking about tackling it a bit.

Any recommendations? Going to check technet/MVA to see if they have any courses on it.

RobertKaucher

None of you has mentioned DSC, sooo... You are welcome.

Introducing PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC)


RunAsRadio: Desired State Configuration with Jeffrey Snover (the father of PowerShell)


Configuration in a DevOps world - Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration

Crikey

My company gets audited quite a bit. I use it more for gathering information from AD than anything else for now. I'm new to the company so I get the door prize.

Need to get better at it, scripting wise, and this is perfect for getting me off my lazy butt.

N2IT

Crikey lol. Door prize classic!