Powershell Megathread: Verb-Noun Scripting is the future

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Submarine Sandpaper: May 27, 2007

What's the best way to terminate a script not using throw or exit?

# ? Nov 30, 2018 22:59

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# ? May 14, 2024 05:52

Zaepho: Oct 31, 2013

Submarine Sandpaper posted:

What's the best way to terminate a script not using throw or exit?

break or return should do it

# ? Nov 30, 2018 23:12

nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

Submarine Sandpaper posted:

What's the best way to terminate a script not using throw or exit?

Restart-Computer

# ? Nov 30, 2018 23:22

Pile Of Garbage: May 28, 2007

Zaepho posted:

break or return should do it

Using return is the best practice. break exits "Foreach, For, While, Do, or Switch statements" and return exits a "function, script, or script block."

nielsm posted:

Stop-Computer -Confirm:$false -Force

ftfy

# ? Dec 1, 2018 07:49

Flaggy: Jul 6, 2007; Grandpa Cthulu needs his napping chair; Grimey Drawer

Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches

is this still the go to for learning powershell? Is there anything else out there that would be better?

# ? Dec 3, 2018 15:37

slartibartfast: Nov 13, 2002

Flaggy posted:

Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches

is this still the go to for learning powershell? Is there anything else out there that would be better?

Month of Lunches is still widely used. I've sent it to a number of people at my company within the last year who asked to learn PS. If you'd like something a little more interactive, though, I'd recommend you also check out PSKoans, which is a little bit like a text-based adventure game that incrementally teaches you PS.

# ? Dec 3, 2018 17:14

Flaggy: Jul 6, 2007; Grandpa Cthulu needs his napping chair; Grimey Drawer

slartibartfast posted:

Month of Lunches is still widely used. I've sent it to a number of people at my company within the last year who asked to learn PS. If you'd like something a little more interactive, though, I'd recommend you also check out PSKoans, which is a little bit like a text-based adventure game that incrementally teaches you PS.

Awesome, thank you!

# ? Dec 3, 2018 18:55

xsf421: Feb 17, 2011

Flaggy posted:

Awesome, thank you!

Don Jones (author of that book) also has a fantastic course on CBT nuggets, if you can find a way to access that. There's probably a dozen coworkers of mine who've learned intermediate to expert level powershell from that course alone.

# ? Dec 3, 2018 19:02

Flaggy: Jul 6, 2007; Grandpa Cthulu needs his napping chair; Grimey Drawer

xsf421 posted:

Don Jones (author of that book) also has a fantastic course on CBT nuggets, if you can find a way to access that. There's probably a dozen coworkers of mine who've learned intermediate to expert level powershell from that course alone.

Dang, that looks nice but is kind of spendy. 840 per year. That is bonkers.

# ? Dec 3, 2018 19:09

Pile Of Garbage: May 28, 2007

slartibartfast posted:

Month of Lunches is still widely used. I've sent it to a number of people at my company within the last year who asked to learn PS. If you'd like something a little more interactive, though, I'd recommend you also check out PSKoans, which is a little bit like a text-based adventure game that incrementally teaches you PS.

That PSKoans thing appears to be nothing more than an interactive version of the PowerShell core about_* topics. It's implemented in Pester so zero guarantee that it will operate correctly in your environment and it doesn't allow real experimentation within the learning environment. And god help you if you're just learning and decide to take a look at the code in the underlying module.

IDK maybe I'm too cynical but this kind of stuff just doesn't seem useful. IMO a better approach is regular learning stuff peppered with problem solving (This script is hosed, fix it using concepts learned) and open design (Make a script that returns "thing" using the concepts you've learned) activities in a sandbox environment. That's the good poo poo but I don't know what provides that though so gently caress me in advance.

# ? Dec 3, 2018 19:21

The Fool: Oct 16, 2003

If you want to get some practice in, Advent of Code is up and is fun.

# ? Dec 3, 2018 19:55

Mute_Fish: Nov 9, 2009

The Fool posted:

If you want to get some practice in, Advent of Code is up and is fun.

Thanks for posting this. These puzzles are indeed a lot of fun and educational.

# ? Dec 5, 2018 00:23

MF_James: May 8, 2008; I CANNOT HANDLE BEING CALLED OUT ON MY DUMBASS OPINIONS ABOUT ANTI-VIRUS AND SECURITY. I REALLY LIKE TO THINK THAT I KNOW THINGS HERE

INSTEAD I AM GOING TO WHINE ABOUT IT IN OTHER THREADS SO MY OPINION CAN FEEL VALIDATED IN AN ECHO CHAMBER I LIKE

Yeah it's awesome, I have found out how little I know about powershell very quickly...

# ? Dec 5, 2018 02:25

Agrikk: Oct 17, 2003; Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.

I am basically brand spanking new to Powershell and am trying to edit the DNS settings of a NIC that I might not know the name of. This script will run on different AWS EC2 instance types and the adapter name and driver type can vary.

Right now I have :

code:

1. $adapterName = get-netadapter -Physical | where status -eq 'up'| Format-List -Property "Name"

2. Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceAlias $adapterName -ServerAddresses "10.1.1.10","10.2.1.10"

But it throws up a bunch of errors on $adapterName being an invalid adapter interface alias.

But when I run line 1 on its own the output is "Name : Ethernet0"

Somehow line 2 is picking up a bunch of different stuff that I don't see in "normal" output.

Before I get too deep into an X-Y problem here, am I even going about this the right way? Is there a better way to accomplish the task of setting DNS entries for the only active ethernet adapter?

# ? Dec 30, 2018 23:29

xsf421: Feb 17, 2011

Agrikk posted:

I am basically brand spanking new to Powershell and am trying to edit the DNS settings of a NIC that I might not know the name of. This script will run on different AWS EC2 instance types and the adapter name and driver type can vary.

Right now I have :
code:
1. $adapterName = get-netadapter -Physical | where status -eq 'up'| Format-List -Property "Name"

2. Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceAlias $adapterName -ServerAddresses "10.1.1.10","10.2.1.10"
But it throws up a bunch of errors on $adapterName being an invalid adapter interface alias.

But when I run line 1 on its own the output is "Name : Ethernet0"

Somehow line 2 is picking up a bunch of different stuff that I don't see in "normal" output.

Before I get too deep into an X-Y problem here, am I even going about this the right way? Is there a better way to accomplish the task of setting DNS entries for the only active ethernet adapter?

Try:

code:


$adapterName = get-netadapter -Physical | where status -eq 'up' | select InterfaceAlias -ExpandProperty interfacealias

The second line should be fine, but you were pulling the "Name:" header in your first line, which was causing your error.

# ? Dec 30, 2018 23:34

Agrikk: Oct 17, 2003; Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.

xsf421 posted:

Try:

This worked. Thank you!

# ? Dec 31, 2018 00:41

Inspector_666: Oct 7, 2003; _{benny with the good hair}

I'm not 100% but I'm pretty sure you only ever want to use "Format-List" to make something human readable rather than when you're trying to pipe the value around.

# ? Dec 31, 2018 01:00

nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

Agrikk posted:

Format-List -Property "Name"

This returns one or more formatting objects, that instruct the shell to print the object in a particular way.

code:

Select-Object Name

This creates a new object based on the input, the output object has a single "Name" property.

code:

Select-Object -ExpandProperty Name

This returns the value of the "Name" property of each input object.

code:

ForEach-Object Name

Same effect as the above, just expressed differently, and likely has different performance characteristics. This particular syntax only works in PowerShell 3 and later, but it can also be used to call methods on objects, rather than just extracting properties.

# ? Dec 31, 2018 08:51

PierreTheMime: Dec 9, 2004; Hero of hormagaunts everywhere!; Buglord

How do you properly define JSON with nested/bracketed values in PowerShell? I have a number of processes that are using curl right now to make some REST calls, but I'd be happy to swap them over to Invoke-RestMethod and avoid using a third-part application.

Here's a payload formatted for CURL in PowerShell (using automation variables as well as PS variables):

code:

[{\"email\":\"${EmailAddress}\",\"enabled\":true,\"firstName\":\"${FirstName}\",\"lastName\":\"${LastName}\",\"emailVerified\":false,\"sendWelcomeEmailEnabled\":false,\"groupDetails\":[\"/APP\",\"' + $Group + '\"],\"attributes\":{\"tableau-username\":[\"' + $TableauSiteName + '-${EmailAddress}\"]},\"isUser\":\"true\"}]

I don't work with JSON often enough to know how to properly define this as a $Body object off the top of my head, but I'd appreciate it if someone could show me because I'm sure I'm just missing something simple.

# ? Jan 10, 2019 19:41

The Fool: Oct 16, 2003

Is there a reason that ConvertTo-JSON and ConvertFrom-JSON wouldn't work for you?

# ? Jan 10, 2019 19:45

Jowj: Dec 25, 2010; My favourite player and idol. His battles with his wrists mirror my own battles with the constant disgust I feel towards my zerg bugs.

I'll echo The Fool, that's what I would do. I will mention a weird finnicky thing:

code:

$jsonObjects = # pretend this is valid json that when converted from json has a name property.
$workingObjects = $jsonObjects | ConvertFrom-Json

# this must exist on a new line. I don't know why. 
# ConvertFrom-Json must just....not finish processing before piping fwd?
$workingObjects = $workingObjects | select -ExpandProperty name

To make sure that makes sense: ConvertFrom-Json must be the last section of a pipeline; i cannot pipe its output further along in one line, I have to split it up. its weird.

# ? Jan 10, 2019 20:03

FISHMANPET: Mar 3, 2007; Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

Also don't curl, use Invoke-RestMethod or Invoke-WebRequest if you can't use Invoke-RestMethod.

And Powershell can be weird with nested JSON, by default ConverTo-Json assumes 2 levels of bojects, but there is a depth flag to the cmdlet if your JSON is more nested than that.

# ? Jan 10, 2019 21:42

PierreTheMime: Dec 9, 2004; Hero of hormagaunts everywhere!; Buglord

ConvertTo-JSON worked just fine, the issue was just formatting the line properly.

code:

$Body = @"
[{"email":"${EmailAddress}","enabled":true,"firstName":"${FirstName}","lastName":"${LastName}","emailVerified":false,"sendWelcomeEmailEnabled":false,"groupDetails":["/APP","' + $Group + '"],"attributes":{"tableau-username":["' + $TableauSiteName + '-${EmailAddress}"]},"isUser":"true"}]
"@ | ConvertTo-JSON

Now I just have to mess around with the other requirements of the endpoint, as it's still giving me a headache.

Edit: If anyone have experience with Keycloak calls I�d appreciate being shown where I�m wrong. I can get an auth token but my POST call using the token gets rejected. The same info works fine using curl, so it�s especially frustrating.

PierreTheMime fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Jan 10, 2019

# ? Jan 10, 2019 22:11

Agrikk: Oct 17, 2003; Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.

Remember when they said that json formatting was poo poo but it doesn�t matter because no human would ever be editing it or interacting with it in any way?

# ? Jan 11, 2019 06:28

Bruegels Fuckbooks: Sep 14, 2004; Now, listen - I know the two of you are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but you have to understand that as far as Grandpa's concerned, you're both pieces of shit! Yeah. I can prove it mathematically.

Agrikk posted:

Remember when they said that json formatting was poo poo but it doesn�t matter because no human would ever be editing it or interacting with it in any way?

the problem is that there's a paradox between "human readable" and "human editable" - JSON was touted as human readable, but you're really not supposed to be creating JSON through string concatenation because there are edge cases that will break the parser (and it becomes more likely to hit those the more complicated the object gets) - but people do it anyway and it mostly works until it doesn't, even though just creating an object and serializing it is easier code to write and will always generate valid JSON.

# ? Jan 12, 2019 09:25

Methanar: Sep 26, 2013; by the sex ghost

json is more readable than yaml.

fight me

# ? Jan 12, 2019 09:41

Pile Of Garbage: May 28, 2007

They're both shite, use whatever has a convenient conversion library for your language.

Or use XML :getin:

# ? Jan 12, 2019 16:02

New Yorp New Yorp: Jul 18, 2003; Only in Kenya.; Pillbug

PierreTheMime posted:

ConvertTo-JSON worked just fine, the issue was just formatting the line properly.
code:
$Body = @"
[{"email":"${EmailAddress}","enabled":true,"firstName":"${FirstName}","lastName":"${LastName}","emailVerified":false,"sendWelcomeEmailEnabled":false,"groupDetails":["/APP","' + $Group + '"],"attributes":{"tableau-username":["' + $TableauSiteName + '-${EmailAddress}"]},"isUser":"true"}]
"@ | ConvertTo-JSON
Now I just have to mess around with the other requirements of the endpoint, as it's still giving me a headache.

Edit: If anyone have experience with Keycloak calls I�d appreciate being shown where I�m wrong. I can get an auth token but my POST call using the token gets rejected. The same info works fine using curl, so it�s especially frustrating.

You are hurting yourself by writing JSON by doing string concatenation. Use an associative array and convert it to JSON.

code:

$foo = @{
  email = $EmailAddress
  enabled = $true
  groupDetails = @( 'entry 1', 'entry 2')
  attributes = @{ key = 'value' }
}

Then push that through ConvertTo-Json to get a JSON string.

@() is a regular array
@{} is an associative array (hash table, key/value pair)

# ? Jan 12, 2019 22:51

PierreTheMime: Dec 9, 2004; Hero of hormagaunts everywhere!; Buglord

New Yorp New Yorp posted:

You are hurting yourself by writing JSON by doing string concatenation. Use an associative array and convert it to JSON.
code:
$foo = @{
  email = $EmailAddress
  enabled = $true
  groupDetails = @( 'entry 1', 'entry 2')
  attributes = @{ key = 'value' }
}
Then push that through ConvertTo-Json to get a JSON string.

@() is a regular array
@{} is an associative array (hash table, key/value pair)

Thanks for this, this was the first way I tried it (as it�s obviously more human-friendly) but I�d screwed up the arrays and figured I�d do it in a more literal way to prove the call worked and come back to it later. Your example showed me where I made the mistake, so problem solved, at least in terms of the body content.

# ? Jan 12, 2019 23:01

Jowj: Dec 25, 2010; My favourite player and idol. His battles with his wrists mirror my own battles with the constant disgust I feel towards my zerg bugs.

Methanar posted:

json is more readable than yaml.

fight me

i guess maybe depending on what you�re doing?

for �never needs to be human edited� usecases, ok maybe.

for like, configuration files that are always human edited though json loses because of comments

# ? Jan 13, 2019 16:21

Dirt Road Junglist: Oct 8, 2010; We will be cruel
And through our cruelty
They will know who we are

Haha, one of my co-workers was struggling with pulling data out of a JSON return, and I was like, "Hold my beer, someone on the forums has the answer."

# ? Jan 14, 2019 22:09

Judge Schnoopy: Nov 2, 2005; dont even TRY it, pal

Jowj posted:

i guess maybe depending on what you’re doing?

for “never needs to be human edited” usecases, ok maybe.

for like, configuration files that are always human edited though json loses because of comments

Why not have a json key of 'comment' for anything worth editing?

# ? Jan 15, 2019 02:51

Jowj: Dec 25, 2010; My favourite player and idol. His battles with his wrists mirror my own battles with the constant disgust I feel towards my zerg bugs.

Strict checkers of json data / proximity to the thing you actually wanna comment IMO.

For instance: If you want to do something like configure an IAM policy in AWS through JSON, you can't just add a json key called "comment"; aws only allows certain keys within the thing. Which is a real pain if something is counter-intuitive and you want to comment it for posterity! You just! Can't!

loving json.

# ? Jan 16, 2019 18:03

PierreTheMime: Dec 9, 2004; Hero of hormagaunts everywhere!; Buglord

How does one capture a dynamic image source as a local file? While it's deprecated and I can generate the chart using PS, I do like the ease and simplicity of the Google Chart API. That said, while the API call renders in a browser properly using the <img src=""> tag, I get a 400 error if I try to use a webclient call to retrieve it. I'm downloading the image file to add it as an inline-attachment to emails, as the render gets blocked by our email filter.

Example chart:

code:

https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=600x300&amp;chco=86BC25&amp;chd=t:0.70,0.30&amp;cht=p&amp;chdl=Test1|Test2&amp;chl=70.10%|29.90%

# ? Jan 18, 2019 19:39

The Fool: Oct 16, 2003

I wouldn't do it in Powershell, but maybe either C# or Python using something like Selenium

# ? Jan 18, 2019 19:51

PierreTheMime: Dec 9, 2004; Hero of hormagaunts everywhere!; Buglord

The Fool posted:

I wouldn't do it in Powershell, but maybe either C# or Python using something like Selenium

Yeah, I considered other code but I've already got the rest of the script driven in shell and would prefer not to bounce around to different languages if I can help it. My current version that creates the chart through System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Charting.Chart works fine, it's just not as polished and takes more code upfront.

# ? Jan 18, 2019 20:03

mystes: May 31, 2006

PierreTheMime posted:

How does one capture a dynamic image source as a local file? While it's deprecated and I can generate the chart using PS, I do like the ease and simplicity of the Google Chart API. That said, while the API call renders in a browser properly using the <img src=""> tag, I get a 400 error if I try to use a webclient call to retrieve it. I'm downloading the image file to add it as an inline-attachment to emails, as the render gets blocked by our email filter.

Example chart:
code:
https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=600x300&amp;chco=86BC25&amp;chd=t:0.70,0.30&amp;cht=p&amp;chdl=Test1|Test2&amp;chl=70.10%|29.90%

It looks like your url is double escaped. Replacing "&" with "&" I can use wget on this url and it works fine. I don't know if this is the problem you were having specifically, but you may want to check for some sort of escaping problem.

The Fool posted:

I wouldn't do it in Powershell, but maybe either C# or Python using something like Selenium

I would definitely not recommend using selenium for this. The only reason to use selenium would be if Google was providing this service as an SPA or something rather than an api and you were trying to get around this (which probably wouldn't be a good idea).

mystes fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jan 18, 2019

# ? Jan 18, 2019 20:04

PierreTheMime: Dec 9, 2004; Hero of hormagaunts everywhere!; Buglord

mystes posted:

It looks like your url is double escaped. Replacing "&" with "&" I can use wget on this url and it works fine. I don't know if this is the problem you were having specifically, but you may want to check for some sort of escaping problem.

Yep, that was it, thanks!

# ? Jan 18, 2019 20:13

TITTIEKISSER69: Mar 19, 2005; SAVE THE BEES
PLANT MORE TREES
CLEAN THE SEAS
KISS TITTIESS

I need to find out how many AD users in a certain OU have extensionAttribute7 populated, and export this to a .csv file. I'm sure it'll start with Get-ADuser, but as a newb to this I'm having trouble fleshing out the rest. Can anyone help?

EDIT: The following gave me what I wanted, except from all of AD. Now trying to figure out how to get from just one OU

code:

Get-ADUser -filter * -properties extensionAttribute7 | Select-Object name, extensionAttribute7 | export-csv $dir$\ExAt7.csv -Encoding "Unicode"

TITTIEKISSER69 fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Jan 22, 2019

# ? Jan 22, 2019 19:06

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# ? May 14, 2024 05:52

Inspector_666: Oct 7, 2003; _{benny with the good hair}

TITTIEKISSER69 posted:

I need to find out how many AD users in a certain OU have extensionAttribute7 populated, and export this to a .csv file. I'm sure it'll start with Get-ADuser, but as a newb to this I'm having trouble fleshing out the rest. Can anyone help?

code:

Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties extensionAttribute7 | Select Name,SamAccountName,extensionAttribute7 | Export-CSV -Path <WHEREVER YOU WANT TO PUT THE CSV> -NoTypeInformation

should get you the CSV showing the user's name, AD login, and the value of extensionAttribute7. This'll pull everybody in AD, you can then filter in Excel to not see any of the empty ones. That's the simplest way to do it.

EDIT: to answer the question of how to search in a specific OU, use the -SearchBase flag in Get-ADUser with the distinguished name of the OU.

# ? Jan 22, 2019 19:19

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Powershell Megathread: Verb-Noun Scripting is the future

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