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.

New Gig

So I have been working at this new gig for over two weeks now.   Personal note, my hesitation about being a contractor were valid for sure.  So  a  few odd things as I started this new spot, Windows 7 on the desktop which in previous shops making the move to Windows 7 is probably a year away at least.  In terms of Powershell, it  would seem no one is using it and the one person I have  encountered  that does scripting, he shuns powershell and instead uses ASP and vbscript.  I have started applying and showing how not just for scripting, Powershell could make some of their processes much easier.  I will post more when I have some free time...

Always Learning

Okay, this one is more about the great community of powershell users. I took a task upon myself after realizing user’s admin accounts were not part of the password synchronization process. The task was a good way to show the group how Powershell could be used. Being a huge fan of one-liners I sent some informative emails showing how easy it was to list user accounts and vital information such as whether it is disabled or the password expired. Its really not about that though. Based on the results it seemed logical to create a script to perform an audit, to include notification to users that their password would expire.

So, onto the point of this posting. I started working on the script, tested the logic for identifying password expiration now it was time to work on formatting the email message(s). I could have made it a simple one line email but considering the recipients I wanted it to be a little more informational.

II have experimented with Here-Strings but never really used them so here was a chance to put it to use…. Doh! its not working, research the problem a little and the problem was, in following proper indentation the string completion meant the whitespace, aka blank spaces, aka tabs, aka indentation was considered the first characters on the line. Wondering if maybe I was missing something I posted to the powershellcommunity.org. I have always been impressed with how quick and in-depth people work to help others on this site. Almost instantly it was confirmed that there was no workaround with here-strings but also a ton of recommendations for alternatives. Then some feedback in terms of sure indentation is great but for the sake of performance and compliance its no crime to break the format to use a true Powershell function versus going through more complicated methods… I hesitated and as you see in the full code listing below I tried two methods and stuck with breaking the “pretty” formatting of the code to use the Here-String. So as the following code shows $usrmsg breaks the indentation, it provides a concise way to build a body of text. I would also like to point out, using a Here-String also made it easier to pass to the function that actually sends the email. A here-string starts with @” and ends with “@, so below you can see it begin with $usrmg=@” so the string will be stored in a variable named $usrmg. Very simple combination of text lines with dynamic data (i.e. $msgdate will actually be the date when the script is executed) assembled and stored to be passed on, the result will be used as the body of the email message.

Done…. not so fast. With Powershell Version 2 sending an email is easy since they included a cmdlet for just that. Code was done, test worked but the actual send-mail message structure was just one very long line. I was using Bing to search for more help with a send-mail message parameter and came across a great blog posting by the group who developed Powershell. Again, very impressed that they not only wrote the language but do a great job of encouraging its use with some great examples and explanations. In reading they address the specific topic of send-mailmessage getting unwieldy and I just had to use it. Basically it stores all of the parameters in a hash table. The resulting code looks cleaner, easier to debug and an added benefit was I could code it out with two values for the email address the email would go to, so one it was ready to go all I need to do is remove the line that had To = my email address and then remove the comment (#) for the entry that used the dynamic value of the user’s email address for notification.

function usrnotification {

    param(

    [string]$varname ,

    [string]$usremail ,

    [string]$vartil 

    )

    Process {

    $msgdate=(get-date).tostring()

#    $msgbody=[System.String]::Format("{0}`r{1}`r{2}",

#    "Message generated: $msgdate from $env:COMPUTERNAME on $msgdate ",

#    "The password for your Windows Admin account $usersam is set to expire in $vartil days  ",

#    "Please verify and change your password."

#    )

# NOTE: Indentation ceased for message text creation

$usrmsgtxt=@"

Message generated: $msgdate from $env:COMPUTERNAME on $msgdate .

The password for your Windows Admin account $usersam is set to expire in $vartil days.  

Please verify and change your password.

"@ # End of message text assembly

    $bodytxt =  $usrmsg | out-string

$usrmsg = @{

        Subject = "Windows Admin Account Password Expiration"

        From = "sender@sendingdomain.com"

        # To = $usremail

        To = "recipient@todomain.com"

        smtpserver = "servername.yourdomain.com"

        Body = $bodytxt

    } # End of mailmessage parameters

    send-mailmessage @usrmsg

No revolutionary code, just a great experience with a great tool and even greater collection of people energized and collaborating for the good of the community.

Home Drive Mapping

So, this one is quick and was primarily meant to be a quick example when presenting on the Quest AD cmdlets.  The practical piece is to deal with something we experience when working remotely.  Typical scenario, user logs in locally to their laptop and then connect to the corporate network via VPN.  The home drive is not mapped because when the desktop state is loaded the VPN connection has not yet been made.  So the script showed how to add a little function to their powershell profile so they could simply run the function to make their connection.

function map-homedrive {

# simple function to map the drive based on your user info

$nw = New-Object -ComObject Wscript.Network

$nw.MapNetworkDrive((Get-QADUser $env:USERNAME).HomeDrive, (Get-QADUser$env:USERNAME).HomeDirectory)

}

The script simply  determines the current user name ($env:USERNAME), then reads the configured values for the corresponding Active directory object for the drive letter (Get-QADUser $env:USERNAME).HomeDrive and then the path (Get-QADUser $env:USERNAME).HomeDirectory , combining those two values to perform the drive mapping.  

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.

 

Technorati Tags: Software,Editor,CLI,ISE

Exploring

Yes, there are some duplicates from my other blog.  Sorry about that but I am experimenting with moving my blog.  The Go Daddy admin tools are just too tedious and with the constant wordpress updates, it just seems like time to explore an alternative.

First annoyance here is displaying code.  Since this is primarily powershell code oriented, that is a big gotcha so I will be experimenting to see if I can work around it.

Version 2 vs CTP3 – Test-connection

Interesting little discovery.  Working an a new Windows2008 R2 Server I started working with the test-connection cmdlet.  After testing some code I was ready to reduce some lines of code in some production scripts.  I quickly found out that test-connection <machine name> –quiet doesn’t work.  This would have helped because in current scripts there is an elaborate use of ping and reading the results which with Powershell V2 can be replaced with:

if (test-connection <machine name or ip> -quiet){ 

    # Some code here } 

Else {"Can not contact target machine"}

Well I will have to put this in the snippet library and put it into action when the full version 2 is available for XP.