Passing on the power of Powershell

I was recently asked to help a fellow systems administrator in one of our divisions with a request.  The request was simple enough with Powershell and when I provided the information the recipient shared the attempts they had made.  When I saw the example it was the familiar blue background of a powershell console and the syntax showed they were familiar with the Quest AD cmdlets….. 

I noticed they tried to run the same command several times just changing the SearchRoot.  So, working on the request I offered a one-liner they could use to replace it, simplifying it to list through the OU’s instead of specifying each one in another command line and formatting the output to make it easier to use.

So I offered the following syntax as a possible solution for their request (Report the count of objects in a set of sub-OUs).

get-qadobject -Type OrganizationalUnit -Searchroot 'some.domain.com/OURoot/SubOU' -SearchScope OneLevel | `
% {$_.CanonicalName + ": " + (get-qadobject -SearchRoot $_.CanonicalName -SizeLimit 0).count }

The one-liner  produced the results they looked for and I was able to explain the line continuation with the backtick (`) and the alias for ForEach (%).  The obvious next question was how do I save this to a script.  So I have an admin hungry for some information on Powershell so I had to create an easy to read script. I had to include something I recently mentioned (thanks to Karl Mitschke) to add a new twist and make the code a little easier to read.

$QADObject = @{
Type = "OrganizationalUnit"
SearchRoot = 'some.domain.com/OURoot/SubOU'
SearchScope = "OneLevel"
}
# Create array of OU's to measure
$checkous = Get-QADObject @QADObject
# Process a count for each returned OU
ForEach ($ou in $checkous){
    # Generate output in report format
    $ou.CanonicalName + ": " +(get-qadobject -SearchRoot $ou.CanonicalName -SizeLimit 0).count
}

Of course I also had to ask what they were using for an editor and suggested that, since they were obviously familiar with the Quest AD cmdlets, they try PowerGUI.

Making lines of code easier to read

When helping to spread the Powershell bug, one of the questions I get often is “how can I keep the line length manageable?”.  The easiest answer is to break the line into smaller segments and span multiple lines with the back tick (`).  Using Powershell Snapins like Quest Active Roles ADManagement or vmware PowerCLI the cmdlets come with a multitude of parameters.  The parameter set makes interacting much more flexible and using a quick example you can perform commands with a simple purpose of returning information and because of the parameters you can  avoid lengthy where-object clauses.  For example;

get-qaduser | where {$_.FirstName -eq 'John' -and $_.LastName -contains 'Kava*'}
can be simplified to:
get-qaduser -FirstName 'John' -LastName 'Kava*'

Pretty simple, but when you start adding even more parameters (e.g SizeLimit, SearchRoot, etc…) for a more targeted request the command line can get very lengthy.  So how do we clean that up?  I came across the answer by accident.  When looking at PowerGUI editor enhancements I came across one that revealed the answer.  The answer is to create Splatted Hash Tables to formulate the parameter set.  Using the example above and adding two parameters the new method would look like:

$qaduser = @{
SizeLimit = 0
SearchRoot = "dc=somedomain,dc=corp"
LastName = 'Kava*'
FirstName = 'John'
}

get-qaduser @qaduser

As you can see all of the parameters are stored in a hast table and then passed to the cmdlet.  As long as the keys match up to the parameters we have boiled down a lengthy string to a concise and easy to read piece of code.

The PowerGUI Script Editor add-on can be found here.  This allows you to take a long piece of code (cmdlet with multiple parameters for example) and press Ctrl+L and it will assemble the splatted hash table and change the command line.  I have found a parameter like “-SizeLimit 0” does not work so well, but easy enough to correct after the add-on does the bulk of the work.

 

Powershell Plus and other editors

I have been a big fan of PowershellPlus, the enhanced shell and scripting tool from Idera.  I had started experiencing issues with the application going into a “Not Responding”  state.  So the new version (3.5) was announced and I thought I would give it a try.  Same interface that drew me to the product with the clear command history, variable displays and the command completion were there.  I started using it and again it was regaining my interest.  Testing done, now lets use it…. Uhoh! I can only suspect this is an issue with PowershellPlus and Quest AD Management tools not working well together but… I was doing a pretty simple query of computers using the Quest get-qadcomputer cmdlet.  Simple output of:

Get-QADComputer -SearchRoot 'somedomain.com/Some OU' -SearchScope 'Subtree' | select Name, ParentContainer

looks as expected.  I prepended to a variable with:

$test = Get-QADComputer -SearchRoot 'somedomain.com/Some OU' -SearchScope 'Subtree' | select Name, ParentContainer

$test.count returns a number in the range I was expecting as it shows 113, so lets look at the output of $test … WTH! it shows 11 items which equated to a specific ParentContainer and the “Not Responding” state surfaced again but not as severe.  Odd, so I test in a standard Powershell CLI and $test.count returns 113 again, and when I check the contents of $test, the screen shows lines of what would be expected of 113 records. 

I will look at this but I have to say my loyalty to this product is done.  On the upside, since I have taken a new position, I have been evangelizing Powershell amongst the Windows SystemAdmins so I have been suggesting PowerGUI and even more the Powershell ISE.  Some of the main features (automatic code-signing, V2 comment based help template, etc…) that I used to favor PowerShellPlus have been showing up in these products.  If you can’t work with the Quest AD cmdlets that’s a deal breaker for me.

I am thinking my blog entries with be adorned with this from here on out….

Toolbox

I was reading some articles from windowsitpro.com specifically on Powershell editors.  I had been a Sapien PrimalCode/PrimalScript user before Powershell.  Then I started using PowershellPlus.  The editor was great but the icing on the cake was the interactive console. 
Lately however I have gone back to PowerGUI Script editor (I don't use the PowerGUI part, just the editor) and now I am using the Powershell ISE.  The primary reason for going back was not monetary as I have already paid for  PowershellPro Plus and PrimalScript 2009.  Since upgrading to version 3.1 x64 of PowershellPro Plus it has just been too unstable (best word I could think of) to continue with.  After executing a script or while in the console and it tries to perform word completion both the console and script editor go into "Not Responding" state and sometimes that can last until I finally kill the application.  The Idera folks have been responsive so I am not swearing off PowershellPro Plus, but I have also learned that the ISE that comes with Powershell is actually a pretty good and customizable editor.

Editing

Just thought I would post a quick note on my experience with the Powershell ISE.  In the past I have stated my preference for Powershell Plus as my Powershell script editor.  I am still a huge fan (well other than the new version seems to have an issue) of the product and in truth it is much more than a script editor. 

I also enjoy the PowerGUI editor but in general I do not use the PowerGUI suite, but when working on a script on a machine that isn’t my workstation, it was easy to install PowerGUI and have access to a decent editor.

With Powershell V2, the ISE was introduced.  I had used it briefly when giving an internal demonstration of Powershell to my colleagues.  I also must admit that I tried to customize it using the ISE specific profile but failed miserably and had given up on it.

A recent project had me developing a script on a server and considering latency it was just easier to RDP into the server and interact with the console.  With the ISE, I had access to an editor and a powershell command line interface without installing PowerGUI or any other software.  I am very impressed with the ISE for developing and debugging scripts.

That said, I still think Powershell Plus is a great tool set.  Any script editor that includes syntax highlighting is helpful and there are some other niceties such as automatically certificate signing scripts, snippets and code completion.  Where I still use Powershell Plus the most is the actual shell.  Whether working on a script or just simple day to day sell usage, I have found Iuse get-help much less since within the shell I can type a cmdlet or function and it knows about most if not all the parameters and includes links to help documents or searches.

Okay I have to get back to completing this script.

 

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