Praise for the First Edition pot

www.it-ebooks.info Praise for the First Edition The closest thing I’ve seen to a class in a book. Contains tons of useful exercises that instill PowerShell prowess by hands-on learning. —Chuck Durfee Sr. Software Engineer, Graebel Companies From beginners to intermediate—this is THE only book you need. Don Jones is a PowerShell superstar and in this book you will see why. —David Moravec SCCM Administrator, PowerShell.cz The seminal guide to learning Powershell—highly recommended. —Ray Booysen Developer, BNP Paribas The book I wish I’d had when I started PowerShell! —Richard Siddaway IT Architect and PowerShell MVP This book not only teaches you PowerShell, it also teaches you to become an expert in PowerShell. —Nikander Bruggeman and Margriet Bruggeman, .NET consultants, Lois & Clark IT Services www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info Learn Windows PowerShell 3 in a Month of Lunches SECOND EDITION DON JONES JEFFERY HICKS MANNING SHELTER ISLAND www.it-ebooks.info For online information and ordering of this and other Manning books, please visit www.manning.com. The publisher offers discounts on this book when ordered in quantity. For more information, please contact Special Sales Department Manning Publications Co. 20 Baldwin Road PO Box 261 Shelter Island, NY 11964 Email: orders@manning.com ©2013 by Manning Publications Co. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in the book, and Manning Publications was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial caps or all caps. Recognizing the importance of preserving what has been written, it is Manning’s policy to have the books we publish printed on acid-free paper, and we exert our best efforts to that end. 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Development editor: Cynthia Kane 20 Baldwin Road Technical Proofreaders: James Berkenbile, Trent Whiteley PO Box 261 Copyeditor: Andy Carroll Shelter Island, NY 11964 Proofreader: Maureen Spencer Typesetter: Dottie Marsico Cover designer: Marija Tudor ISBN 9781617291081 Printed in the United States of America 12345678910–MAL–171615141312 www.it-ebooks.info v brief contents 1 ■ Before you begin 1 2 ■ Meet PowerShell 9 3 ■ Using the help system 20 4 ■ Running commands 36 5 ■ Working with providers 49 6 ■ The pipeline: connecting commands 61 7 ■ Adding commands 74 8 ■ Objects: data by another name 85 9 ■ The pipeline, deeper 97 10 ■ Formatting—and why it’s done on the right 119 11 ■ Filtering and comparisons 134 12 ■ A practical interlude 143 13 ■ Remote control: one to one, and one to many 151 14 ■ Using Windows Management Instrumentation 169 15 ■ Multitasking with background jobs 182 16 ■ Working with many objects, one at a time 196 17 ■ Security alert! 211 18 ■ Variables: a place to store your stuff 222 www.it-ebooks.info BRIEF CONTENTSvi 19 ■ Input and output 238 20 ■ Sessions: remote control with less work 247 21 ■ You call this scripting? 257 22 ■ Improving your parameterized script 269 23 ■ Advanced remoting configuration 278 24 ■ Using regular expressions to parse text files 287 25 ■ Additional random tips, tricks, and techniques 294 26 ■ Using someone else’s script 308 27 ■ Never the end 316 28 ■ PowerShell cheat sheet 319 www.it-ebooks.info vii contents preface xvii about this book xix author online xx about the authors xxii acknowledgments xxv 1 Before you begin 1 1.1 Why you can’t afford to ignore PowerShell 1 1.2 Is this book for you? 3 1.3 How to use this book 4 1.4 Setting up your lab environment 5 1.5 Installing Windows PowerShell 6 1.6 Online resources 7 1.7 Being immediately effective with PowerShell 8 2 Meet PowerShell 9 2.1 Choose your weapon 9 The console window 11 ■ The Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) 13 2.2 It’s typing class all over again 15 2.3 Common points of confusion 16 www.it-ebooks.info CONTENTSviii 2.4 What version is this? 17 2.5 Lab 18 2.6 Further exploration 19 3 Using the help system 20 3.1 The help system: how you discover commands 20 3.2 Updatable help 22 3.3 Asking for help 23 3.4 Using help to find commands 24 3.5 Interpreting the help 26 Parameter sets and common parameters 26 ■ Optional and mandatory parameters 27 ■ Positional parameters 28 Parameter values 30 ■ Finding command examples 32 3.6 Accessing “about” topics 32 3.7 Accessing online help 34 3.8 Lab 34 4 Running commands 36 4.1 Not scripting, but running commands 36 4.2 The anatomy of a command 37 4.3 The cmdlet naming convention 38 4.4 Aliases: nicknames for commands 39 4.5 Taking shortcuts 40 Truncating parameter names 40 ■ Parameter name aliases 41 Positional parameters 41 4.6 Cheating, a bit: Show-Command 42 4.7 Support for external commands 44 4.8 Dealing with errors 46 4.9 Common points of confusion 47 Typing cmdlet names 47 ■ Typing parameters 47 4.10 Lab 48 5 Working with providers 49 5.1 What are providers? 49 5.2 How the filesystem is organized 51 5.3 How the filesystem is like other data stores 53 www.it-ebooks.info CONTENTS ix 5.4 Navigating the filesystem 54 5.5 Using wildcards and literal paths 55 5.6 Working with other providers 57 5.7 Lab 60 5.8 Further exploration 60 6 The pipeline: connecting commands 61 6.1 Connect one command to another: less work for you 61 6.2 Exporting to a CSV or an XML file 62 Exporting to CSV 63 ■ Exporting to XML 64 Comparing files 65 6.3 Piping to a file or a printer 67 6.4 Converting to HTML 68 6.5 Using cmdlets that modify the system: killing processes and stopping services 69 6.6 Common points of confusion 70 6.7 Lab 72 7 Adding commands 74 7.1 How one shell can do everything 74 7.2 About product-specific “management shells” 75 7.3 Extensions: finding and adding snap-ins 76 7.4 Extensions: finding and adding modules 78 7.5 Command conflicts and removing extensions 80 7.6 Playing with a new module 81 7.7 Profile scripts: preloading extensions when the shell starts 82 7.8 Common points of confusion 84 7.9 Lab 84 8 Objects: data by another name 85 8.1 What are objects? 85 8.2 Why PowerShell uses objects 86 8.3 Discovering objects: Get-Member 88 8.4 Object attributes, or “properties” 89 8.5 Object actions, or “methods” 90 www.it-ebooks.info [...]... Extracting the value from a single property 111 Lab 117 Further exploration 118 Formatting—and why it’s done on the right 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 10.8 10.9 Formatting: making what you see prettier 119 About the default formatting 120 Formatting tables 123 Formatting lists 124 Formatting wide 125 Custom columns and list entries 126 Going out: to a file, a printer, or the host 128 Another out:... usually near the upper left, under the Escape key, on the same key as the tilde character (~) When you see the backtick in a code listing, type it exactly as is Furthermore, when it appears at the end of a line—as in the preceding example—make sure that it’s the very last character on that line If you allow any spaces or tabs to appear after it, the backtick won’t work correctly, and neither will the code... publish themselves Don would like to thank everyone at Manning Publications who decided to take a chance on a very different kind of book for Windows PowerShell, and who worked so hard to make the first edition of this book happen Jeff would like to thank Don for inviting him along for the ride, and all the PowerShell community for their enthusiasm and support Don and Jeff are both grateful to Manning for. .. steps to customize the font: 1 2 Click the control box (that’s the PowerShell icon in the upper left of the console window) and select Properties from the menu In the dialog box that appears, browse through the various tabs to change the font, window colors, window size and position, and so forth We strongly recommend you make sure that both the Window Size and Screen Buffer have the same Width values... need to perform a task, or ones who can perform tasks in a few seconds after automating them? We already know the answer from almost every other part of the IT world Ask a Cisco administrator, or an AS/400 operator, or a Unix administrator The answer is, “I’d rather have the person who can run things more efficiently from the command line.” Going forward, the Windows world will start to split into... are the two examples that come quickly to mind For the most part, we’re going to introduce only those technologies and focus on how PowerShell connects to www.it-ebooks.info 4 CHAPTER 1 Before you begin them Those topics deserve their own books (and have them; we’ll provide recommendations when we get there); we’ll concentrate solely on the PowerShell side of things We’ll provide suggestions for further... full GUI (for example, Server Core) NOTE Before you go any further, take a few minutes to customize the shell If you’re using the text-based console host, we strongly recommend that you change the font it uses to the Lucida fixed-width font instead of the default console font The default font makes it difficult to distinguish some of the special punctuation characters that PowerShell uses Follow these... between readers and the authors can take place It’s not a commitment to any specific amount of participation on the part of the authors, whose contribution to the book’s forum remains voluntary (and unpaid) We suggest you try asking the authors some challenging questions, lest their interest stray! The Author Online forum and the archives of previous discussions will be accessible from the publisher’s... production xxii www.it-ebooks.info Before you begin We’ve been teaching Windows PowerShell since version 1 was released in 2006 Back then, most of the folks using the shell were experienced VBScript users, and they were eager to apply their VBScript skills to learning PowerShell As a result, we and the other folks who taught the shell, wrote books and articles, and so forth, all adopted a teaching style... authors and other users To access and subscribe to the forum, point your browser to www.manning.com/LearnWindowsPowerShell3inaMonthofLunchesSecondEdition or to www.manning.com/jones3 and click the Author Online link This page provides information on how to get on the forum once you are registered, what kind of help is available, and the rules of conduct in the forum Manning’s commitment to our readers is . www.it-ebooks.info Praise for the First Edition The closest thing I’ve seen to a class in a book. Contains tons. 119 10.1 Formatting: making what you see prettier 119 10.2 About the default formatting 120 10.3 Formatting tables 123 10.4 Formatting lists 124 10.5 Formatting