Taking Advantage of Microsoft PowerShell

Taking Advantage of Microsoft
PowerShell
Presented by Jared Thibodeau

© Global Knowledge Training LLC. All rights reserved. Page 2
Presenter
Jared Thibodeau
Microsoft Operations Instructor at Global Knowledge
• bilingual, cross-certified instructor with hands-on
implementation experience and over
• 20 years of IT consulting and teaching experience
• Windows NT, Server 2000-2016, Windows XP-10, SharePoint
2007-2016, System Center, SCCM, SCOM, VMware and
Hyper-V Virtualization, Cloud and many others.

Topic 1
What you can administer with PowerShell

Windows PowerShell overview
• Introduced in 2006
• Both a CLI and scripting language
• Commands include:
• Cmdlets (pronounced command-lets)
• Functions
• Filters
• Workflows
• Microsoft server applications provide application-
specific cmdlets
• Now open-source and supports Linux and macOS

Windows PowerShell vs. operating system
• Windows PowerShell ships with specific core,
native functionality
• Most of its use, however, comes from
extensions―additional commands that extend the
capabilities of Windows PowerShell
• Extensions are designed to work with a specific
version of Windows PowerShell, but they do not
ship with Windows PowerShell itself
• Instead, extensions are provided as part of an
operating system or a specific product version

Two host applications
• Console
• Basic command-line interface
• Maximum support for PowerShell features
• Minimal editing capabilities
• ISE
• Script editor and console combination
• Some Windows PowerShell features not supported
• Rich editing capabilities
• Third-party hosting applications/editors
• Varying features and pricing

Working in mixed-version environments
• Many organizations must operate environments
that contain more than one version of Windows
PowerShell
• Use $PSVersionTable to determine the version of
Windows PowerShell on a computer

Precautions when opening Windows PowerShell
• 64-bit operating systems include 64-bit and 32-bit
versions
• 32-bit versions carry (x86) designation on icon and window title bar
• Be certain you are opening the appropriate version for the task at
hand
• Usually, open the 64-bit version if it is available
• Ensure that the window title bar displays Administrator if
you need administrative privileges in Windows PowerShell
• When UAC is enabled, you must right-click the application icon to
run as Administrator
• Always verify the window title bar contents when opening Windows
PowerShell

Configuring the ISE
• Two panes: script and console
• One-pane and two-pane view options
• Command Add-on displays available commands
• Customization of font style, size, and color
• Customization of screen color
• Bundling of color selections into themes
• Additional features include snippets, add-ins, and
debugging

Topic 2
How to find and execute PowerShell
commands

Lesson 2: Understanding command syntax
Cmdlet structure
Parameters
Tab completion
Using Get-Help
Demonstration: Viewing help
Interpreting the help syntax
Updating help
About files
Demonstration: Using About files

Cmdlet structure
• Verb is the action the cmdlet performs:
• Get
• Set
• New
• Add
• Remove
• Noun is the resource the cmdlet affects:
• Service
• Process
• Prefixes used to group related nouns:
• AD, SP, and AzureAD

Parameters
• Parameters modify the action of a cmdlet
• Names are entered starting with a dash (-)
• Parameters can be optional or required
• You will receive prompts for required parameters, if needed
• Some accept multiple values, separated by commas
• Parameter name is optional for positional parameters

Tab completion
• Allows you to enter cmdlet, parameter, variable, and path
names more quickly and accurately
• Helps you to discover cmdlets and parameters
• Supports the use of wildcards

Using Get-Help
• Displays Windows PowerShell help content
• You provide a cmdlet name to display help for a
cmdlet
• Supports wildcards
• Parameters include:
• -Examples
• -Full
• -Online
• -ShowWindow
• -Parameter ParameterName

Demonstration: Viewing help
In this demonstration, you will see how to use
various options of the help system

Interpreting the help syntax
Parameter set Mandatory parameter
Positional parameter Optional parameter

About files
• Provide documentation for global shell techniques,
concepts, and features
• Start with about_
• View list by running Get-Help about*
• You will need to read many of these files to complete
several upcoming lab exercises

Demonstration: Using About files
In this demonstration, you will see how to use the
About help file topics

Lesson 3: Finding commands
What are modules?
Demonstration: Viewing modules
Finding cmdlets
Demonstration: Searching for cmdlets
What are aliases?
Demonstration: Using aliases
Using Show-Command

What are modules?
• Modules:
• Are containers for related cmdlets
• Are provided as part of management tools for various software
packages
• Must be loaded into current session
• Windows PowerShell version 3.0 and newer support
autoloading
• Autoloading requires Windows Server 2012/ Windows 8 or
newer

Demonstration: Viewing modules
In this demonstration, you will see:
• How to find installed modules
• How autoloading and manual loading of modules
work

Finding cmdlets
• Use Get-Command and Get-Help, both of which support wildcards
• Use –Noun, –Verb, and –Module parameters with
Get-Command
• Get-Help can also search the content of help files if no match is found
when searching command names
• Use the PowerShellGet module to find modules and commands from
the PowerShell Gallery

Demonstration: Searching for cmdlets
several techniques to discover new cmdlets

What are aliases?
• Familiar batch commands include:
• Dir
• Cd
• Mkdir
• Type
• These are really aliases to Windows PowerShell commands
• External commands such as ping.exe and ipconfig.exe all work as
usual
• Windows PowerShell commands often have a different syntax, even
if accessed by an alias that matches an older command name

Demonstration: Using aliases
In this demonstration, you will see how to:
• Find an alias for a cmdlet
• Find a cmdlet based on an alias you already know
• Create an alias

Using Show-Command

Topic 3
How to format information and combine
multiple PowerShell commands

Module Overview
Understanding the pipeline
Selecting, sorting, and measuring objects
Filtering objects out of the pipeline
Enumerating objects in the pipeline
Sending pipeline data as output

Lesson 1: Understanding the pipeline
What is the pipeline?
Pipeline output
Discovering object members
Demonstration: Viewing object members
Formatting pipeline output
Demonstration: Formatting pipeline output

What is the pipeline?
• Windows PowerShell runs commands in a pipeline
• Each console command line is a pipeline
• Commands separated by a pipe character (|)
• Commands execute from left to right
• Output of each command is piped (passed) to the next
• The output of the last command in the pipeline is what
appears on your screen
• Piped commands typically follow the pattern Get |Set, Get
| Where, or Select | Set

Pipeline output
• Windows PowerShell commands produce objects
as their output
• An object is like a table of data in memory
• Allows the Get | Set pattern to work
Name Status DisplayName
WinRM Running Windows
Remote
Management
VDS Running Virtual Disk
Property
Object
Collection

Discovering object members
• Object members include:
• Properties
• Methods
• Events
• Run a command that produces an object, and pipe that
object to Get-Member to see a list of members
• Get-Member is a discovery tool, similar to Help, that can
help you learn to use the shell

Demonstration: Viewing object members
In this demonstration, you will see how to run
commands in the pipeline and how to use Get-
Member

Formatting pipeline output
• Use the following cmdlets to format pipeline output:
• Format-List
• Format-Table
• Format-Wide
• The -Property parameter:
• Is common to all formatting cmdlets
• Filters output to specified property names
• Can only specify properties that were passed to the formatting
command

Demonstration: Formatting pipeline output
In this demonstration, you will see how to format
pipeline output

Creating calculated properties
• Calculated (custom) properties let you choose the output
label and contents
• Each calculated property works like a single regular property
in the property list accepted by Select-Object
• Create calculated properties by using a specific syntax:
• Label defines the property name
• Expression defines the property contents
• Within the expression, $PSItem (or $_) refers to the piped-in object

Creating calculated properties
@{
n='VirtualMemory';
e={ $PSItem.VM }
}
Hash table
Label key Label string
value
Expression key Expression
script block
Semicolon
Calculated property hash table

Demonstration: Creating calculated properties
Select-Object to create calculated properties. You
will then see how those calculated properties
behave like regular properties.

Lesson 5: Sending pipeline data as output
Writing output to a file
Converting output to CSV
Converting output to XML
Converting output to JSON
Converting output to HTML
Demonstration: Exporting data
Additional output options

Writing output to a file
• Out-File writes whatever is in the pipeline to a text file
• The > and >> redirection operators are also supported
• The text file is formatted exactly the same as the data would have
appeared on the screen―no conversion to another form occurs
• Unless the data has been converted to another form, the resulting text
file is usually suitable for viewing only by a person
• As you start to build more complex commands, you need to keep
track of what the pipeline contains at each step

Converting output to CSV
• The commands are:
• ConvertTo-CSV
• Export-CSV
• The commands send:
• Properties as headers
• No type information
• You can easily open large CSV files in Excel

Converting output to XML
• ConvertTo-CliXml
• Export-CliXml
• Portable data format
• Multivalue properties become individual entries

Converting output to JSON
• The command is
• ConvertTo-JSON
• The advantages are:
• Compactness
• Ease of use, especially with JavaScript
• A format like a hash table

Converting output to HTML
• The command is ConvertTo-HTML
• The command creates a table or list in HTML
• You must pipe the output to a file
• The parameters include:
• -Head
• -Title
• -PreContent
• -Postcontent

Demonstration: Exporting data
In this demonstration, you will see different ways to
convert and export data

Additional output options
• Out-Host allows more control of on-screen output
• Out-Printer sends output to a printer
• Out-GridView creates an interactive, spreadsheet-like
view of the data

Topic 4
How to perform actions on remote
computers using PowerShell

Module Overview
Using basic Windows PowerShell remoting
Using advanced Windows PowerShell remoting techniques
Using PSSessions

Lesson 1: Using basic Windows PowerShell remoting
Remoting overview and architecture
Remoting vs. remote connectivity
Remoting security
Enabling remoting
Using remoting: one-to-one
Using remoting: one-to-many
Demonstration: Enabling and using remoting
Remoting output vs. local output

Remoting overview and architecture
Remoting:
• Uses WS-MAN protocol, using HTTP (by default) or HTTPS
• Is implemented by WinRM service
• Is enabled by default on Windows Server 2016; available on any
computer running Windows PowerShell 2.0 or greater
• Is not enabled on any client operating system
• Must be enabled on any computer that will receive incoming
connections

Remoting vs. remote connectivity
• Remoting is the name of a specific feature that utilizes a specific
service and protocol
• When used in Windows PowerShell, use the term Windows
PowerShell remoting
• It applies to a relatively small subset of commands that can
communicate with remote computers
• A command with a –ComputerName parameter does not
necessarily mean it uses remoting
• Nonremoting commands use their own protocols:
• RPCs, which include WMI
• Remote Registry Service (for example, Get-Process)

Remoting security
• Remoting is security transparent; you can perform only those
tasks that your credentials allow
• Mutual authentication helps prevent delegation of credentials
to spoofed or impersonated computers:
• It works in domain environments by default
• It can use SSL in lieu of domain credentials
• It can be disabled through the TrustedHosts list

Remoting security
Remoting privacy:
• Channel-level encryption is provided only with HTTPS connections
• Application-level encryption is provided with all connections
• Credentials are transmitted in clear text only with the Basic
authentication protocol when HTTPS is not in use (for example, to
a nondomain computer on TrustedHosts list)
• You cannot use Basic authentication unless you enable
unencrypted traffic in the client configuration

Enabling remoting
• To enable Windows PowerShell remoting manually, run Enable-
PSRemoting as an Administrator
• To enable Windows PowerShell remoting centrally, configure a
GPO
• There are restrictions on client computers where a network
connection is set to Public
• Windows Server 2012 and later enable Windows PowerShell
remoting by default; no further steps are needed

Using remoting: one-to-one
One-to-one Windows PowerShell remoting is similar in
concept to SSH, although different in actual operation:
1. Start with
Enter-PSSession –ComputerName name
2. The Windows PowerShell prompt changes to indicate the
connected computer
3. Exit with Exit-PSSession

Using remoting: one-to-many
• Invoke-Command can send a command or script to one or
more remote computers in parallel
• Results include a PSComputerName property that indicate
the computer each result came from
• Considerations include:
• Throttling
• Passing data to remote computers
• Persistence
• Ways to specify computer names

Demonstration: Enabling and using remoting
In this demonstration, you will see how to enable
remoting on a client computer, and how to use
remoting in several basic scenarios

Remoting output vs. local output
• Results received through remoting are deserialized from XML
• As a result, they are not live objects and do not have
methods or events
• As a strategy, try to have as much processing as possible
occur on the remote computer, with only the final results
coming back to you through remoting

Lesson 2: Using advanced Windows PowerShell remoting
techniques
Common remoting options
Sending parameters to remote computers
Windows PowerShell scopes
Demonstration: Sending local variables to a remote computer
Multi-hop remoting

Common remoting options
• –Port
• –UseSSL
• –Credential
• –ConfigurationName
• –Authentication
• Additional options are available by creating a
PSSessionOption object, and then passing it to
–SessionOption

Sending parameters to remote computers
• You cannot use local variables in the Invoke-Command
script block
• You can pass data. However, you must use a specific
technique
• Pass local variables to the –ArgumentList parameter of
Invoke-Command; they will map to variables in a Param()
block inside the script block

Multi-hop remoting
1 2

Lesson 3: Using PSSessions
Persistent connections
Creating a PSSession
Using a PSSession
Demonstration: Using PSSessions
Disconnected sessions
Demonstration: Disconnected sessions
Implicit remoting
Demonstration: Implicit remoting

Persistent connections
• PSSessions:
• Represent a persistently running connection on the remote
computer
• Can execute multiple sequences of commands, be
disconnected, reconnected, and closed
• Numerous configuration parameters in the drive WSMan
control idle session time and maximum connections

Creating a PSSession
• Create sessions by using New-PSSession; the command
produces a reference to the PSSessions it creates
• Assign PSSessions to variables to make them easier to
refer to later

Using a PSSession
• Pass a session object to the –Session parameter of Enter-
PSSession to interactively enter that session
• Alternatively, pass session object(s) to the
–Session parameter of Invoke-Command to
run a command against those PSSessions
• The PSSessions remain open and connected after you are
finished, leaving them ready for additional use

Demonstration: Using PSSessions
In this demonstration, you will see how to create
and manage PSSessions

Disconnected sessions
• Disconnect-PSSession disconnects from a PSSession while
leaving Windows PowerShell running:
• Does not happen automatically when you close the host application
• Get-PSSession –ComputerName displays a list of your
PSSessions on the specified computer:
• You cannot see other users’ PSSessions
• Connect-PSSession reconnects a PSSession, making it
available for use

Demonstration: Disconnected sessions
In this demonstration, you will see how to:
• Create a PSSession
• Disconnect a PSSession
• Display PSSessions
• Reconnect a PSSession

Implicit remoting
• Imports commands from a remote computer to the local
one:
• Imported commands still run on the remote computer
through an established remoting session
• Lets you utilize commands without needing to install them
• Help is also drawn from the remote computer

Demonstration: Implicit remoting
implicit remoting to import and use a module from
a remote computer

Courses
Automating
Administration
with Windows
PowerShell
Advanced
Automated
Administration
Windows
PowerShell
Scripting and
Toolmaking

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Taking Advantage of Microsoft PowerShell

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