Administering SharePoint 2010 with Windows PowerShell WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER? Basic Windows PowerShell usage How to use common SharePoint 2010 cmdlets The SharePoint object model PowerShell is now the command-line tool for administering SharePoint 2010. In previous ver- sions of SharePoint, administrators worked with STSADM.exe. Starting with SharePoint 2007, we began seeing some integration with PowerShell and SharePoint. With no commands provided we managed to create our own PowerShell commands and scripts for SharePoint 2007. To do so some of us had to get our hands dirty and either put on our developer hat or beg, borrow, and steal from friends on the Internet. Ultimately, we ended up with some PowerShell scripts for SharePoint 2007 even if we really didn’t understand how they worked under the covers. With the 2010 version of SharePoint, the use of PowerShell for administration is different, much different. Now we have commands and a management shell that installs with SharePoint 2010 — and when we say commands, we mean a lot of commands, well over 500. STSADM only boasted around 185 commands. More important, these 500 plus commands can be chained together and scripted, enabling you to create practically an infi nite number of scripts and commands. In this chapter we will get you up to speed on PowerShell in general, and then show you how to harness the power of this beast to benefi t your SharePoint 2010 farm. 10 248 CHAPTER 10 admiNisteriNg sharePoiNt 2010 With WiNdoWs PoWershell INTRODUCTION TO WINDOWS POWERSHELL There is no requirement that you must use PowerShell to administer SharePoint 2010. Basically every administrative function is exposed through the SharePoint user interface. Many administra- tive tasks are easily done via Central Administration or Site Settings. While it is conceivable that a SharePoint 2010 administrator could avoid using PowerShell, what fun would that be? PowerShell really starts to shine when you want to perform repeatable processes or multiple tasks. For example, you can create site collections using Central Administration — one site collection at a time. But with a little knowledge of PowerShell and the SharePoint commands you can create a comma-separated list of many site collection URLs and supporting information, and then use PowerShell’s Import-CSV cmdlet with the New-SPSite cmdlet to create them with a single click of the Enter key. If you are worried that STSADM is no longer available, rest assured that STSADM is still around, for now. The writing is on the wall, however; PowerShell is now the command-line tool for SharePoint administrators. Microsoft says STSADM is dep- recated, which is a fancy way of saying it will be removed in a future version. Start saying goodbye to STSADM. MICROSOFT SHAREPOINT 2010 MANAGEMENT SHELL AND OTHER HOSTS PowerShell is included in Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and is activated as a feature. However, it is version 1.1, and SharePoint 2010 requires version 2. Because PowerShell version 2 is a prerequisite for SharePoint 2010, the prerequisite installer will try to install it. You’ll get an error if the PowerShell version 1.1 feature is activated. Simply deactivate it and run the prerequisite installer to get the cor- rect version of PowerShell installed. Windows Server 2008 R2 comes with PowerShell version 2 already installed and enabled. You may get an error when the prerequisite installer runs, but you can ignore it. The correct version of PowerShell is installed and patiently waiting for SharePoint to come out and play. Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Management Shell The Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Management Shell is displayed in Figure 10-1. This is the default, out-of-the-box SharePoint command-line interface. Not much to look at. As a matter of fact, it looks a lot like the command console you used to run STSADM commands in SharePoint 2007. It is, however, a cleverly disguised PowerShell console, with the PowerShell commands registered and ready for use. Open the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell and PowerShell at the same time. If you squint, you might see that they look pretty similar. The only obvious difference is that the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Management Shell and Other Hosts 249 SharePoint Management Shell has a black background, while the standard PowerShell background is blue. They may look similar, but only the Management Shell will run the SharePoint commands without further confi guration. You can run STSADM commands inside of PowerShell. Add the path to STSADM to the system’s path variable and call all the STSADM commands you like. FIGURE 101 Run a very basic SharePoint command in both consoles — for example, Get-SPSite. The Management Shell will happily return a list of site collections, whereas the PowerShell console won’t have a clue what you want it to do. In other words, the big secret is that the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell is just the PowerShell .exe with a command-line parameter that points to a PSC1 fi le or a console fi le. The PSC1 fi le tells the PowerShell host to register the SharePoint commands. One other minor difference is that it also has a title bar that says SharePoint 2010 Management Shell, but otherwise the Management Shell is all PowerShell. Using Other Windows PowerShell Hosts While the Management Shell is the only host that is confi gured to run SharePoint commands, it is not the only host that an administrator can use. Administrators can choose to work with other PowerShell hosts. Two common hosts are available with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2: Windows PowerShell and Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment, more commonly known as ISE. ISE is displayed in Figure 10-2. Administrators can also use many of the third-party PowerShell hosts available free or for purchase. Many of these boast a rich graphical user interface. The rest of this chapter sticks to the Management Shell because it is the lowest common denomina- tor, but we realize that many of you will want to know how to confi gure these other hosts to use the SharePoint 2010 PowerShell commands, so we cover that here. 250 CHAPTER 10 admiNisteriNg sharePoiNt 2010 With WiNdoWs PoWershell FIGURE 102 Adding commands is similar for all hosts. We will be adding commands to the PowerShell ISE host. ISE provides a multi-line editor with breakpoints and other help for scripting. You might need to consult the documentation for other third-party hosts. ISE is installed with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 but it is not activated. To activate ISE, use the Add Feature screen of the Server Manager. Figure 10-3 shows the Server Manager’s Add Feature screen with the ISE feature checked. To register the SharePoint PowerShell commands with ISE you must be working locally on a SharePoint 2010 server. The SharePoint 2010 PowerShell commands do not remote. SharePoint 2010 commands must be run on a SharePoint 2010 server. The com- mands cannot be run from a client. PowerShell 2 does provide a remoting scenario whereby commands can be executed from a client to run on the server. This is a PowerShell function and not specifi c to SharePoint 2010. To learn more about confi guring Windows PowerShell remoting with SharePoint 2010, read this blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/opal/archive/2010/03/07/sharepoint-2010- with-windows-powershell-remoting-step-by-step.aspx . Use the Add-PSSnapin PowerShell command to register the SharePoint PowerShell commands: Add-PSSnapIn Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell Add-PSSnapIn is a PowerShell command that will register commands. The Microsoft.SharePoint .PowerShell snap-in contains the registration information for the SharePoint commands. Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Management Shell and Other Hosts 251 FIGURE 103 This will get you started. To verify that the SharePoint 2010 commands are available in ISE, simply run a SharePoint command such as Get-SPSite. ISE should respond with a list of site collections on the farm. Note one tiny issue: You are required to add the Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell snap-in every time you start the host. To avoid this, you can run the command to add the snap-in to your profile, which will run each time you start a host. You can locate your profile by typing $Profile into the command line, which will return the path to your profile. $Profile is a variable containing the current user’s profile location. The profile loca- tion may be different for each host. The ISE profile is different from the PowerShell profile, so com- mands for the ISE user’s profile will not interfere with other PowerShell hosts. If the profile exists already, you can use the following command to open your profile: Notepad $Profile If the profile exists, Notepad will open it. If the profile does not exist but the directory exists, Notepad will prompt you to create a new file. Add the Add-PSSnapin command with the Microsoft.SharePoint .PowerShell value into your ISE profile and save it. You will need to restart ISE to read in the profile changes. When you need a command, variable, or function to persist between sessions, you can use the profile. 252 CHAPTER 10 admiNisteriNg sharePoiNt 2010 With WiNdoWs PoWershell COMMANDS PowerShell is powered by commands. Commands get things done. There are four basic types of commands: cmdlets, functions, scripts, and native commands. It is not necessarily important to know the differences among these command types to work with PowerShell and SharePoint, but it doesn’t hurt either. If you are just starting out with PowerShell, you can fi nd a wealth of general information at http://microsoft.com/PowerShell. Cmdlets Cmdlets (pronounced command-lets) are compiled commands that are registered with PowerShell. They have a very specifi c naming convention: All cmdlets are named with a verb-noun combina- tion. The verb portion of the name should be one of the PowerShell accepted verbs. PowerShell defi nes a list of these verbs and what they mean at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ ms714428(VS.85).aspx . Because the verbs are “standardized,” you can usually guess the verb portion of the cmdlet. An example of a cmdlet is New-SPWebApplication, which has a corresponding Remove- SPWebApplication. You might have expected to use the verb “delete” to delete a SPWebApplication, but delete is not one of the standardized verbs, so it cannot be used. Cmdlets are installed and registered. As you might have already guessed, the SharePoint commands that we will be using are cmdlets. You saw that SharePoint installed the cmdlets on the server, and the Management Shell registered them with the host using the PSC1 fi le; and you now know how to manually register them in the ISE. You can also create custom cmdlets, but that is a topic beyond the scope of this book. You can learn more about writing your own cmdlets in this MSDN article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd878294(VS.85).aspx. Functions Functions can contain one or more commands to accomplish a task, and can accept parameters that allow the creation of custom reusable code. They are defi ned in PowerShell by typing the function into the host. PowerShell then compiles the function and verifi es the syntax. Functions can be reused for the lifetime of the host session. If you close the host, then you lose the function; and it will need to be entered again when you start another session with the host. You can enter functions into your profi le so they will be available whenever you start a session. There’s nothing worse than working on an award-winning function, only to lose it when you shut down the host. Consider yourself warned and save your func- tion in your profi le or at least to a text fi le so you can copy it later. Functions have their place and are great for containing code that you will want to call from various other scripts or commands, but with a single chapter for administering SharePoint using PowerShell, we have no space to cover them in depth here. . register the SharePoint PowerShell commands with ISE you must be working locally on a SharePoint 2010 server. The SharePoint 2010 PowerShell commands do not remote. SharePoint 2010 commands. c to SharePoint 2010. To learn more about confi guring Windows PowerShell remoting with SharePoint 2010, read this blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/opal/archive /2010/ 03/07 /sharepoint- 2010- with-windows-powershell-remoting-step-by-step.aspx . Use. SharePoint to come out and play. Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Management Shell The Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Management Shell is displayed in Figure 10-1. This is the default, out-of-the-box SharePoint