PowerShell « rakhesh.com

Get a list of users in an OU along with last logged on date

Posted: September 2nd, 2015 | Tags: active directory, last logged on | Category: PowerShell | §

Trivial stuff. Wanted to note it down someplace for future reference –

Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase "OU=Users,OU=DomainUsers,DC=mydomain,DC=com" -Properties * | Sort-Object LastLogonDate | ft Name,SamAccountName,LastLogonDate

1	Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase "OU=Users,OU=DomainUsers,DC=mydomain,DC=com" -Properties * \| Sort-Object LastLogonDate \| ft Name,SamAccountName,LastLogonDate

Start-BitsTransfer does nothing

Posted: August 30th, 2015 | Tags: BITS | Category: PowerShell | §

I had to copy some VMware templates from our head office to the branch offices. Thought I’d copy them out of the datastores manually, then do a BITS transfer to the remote offices. This way I can do the transfer during normal hours but with minimal user impact.

Since PowerShell 2.0 you had the Start-BitsTransfer cmdlet to do BITS transfers.

Oddly however, the command would just exit without any error for me. And it didn’t seem to be doing anything. Then I realized I was pointing the cmdlet to my source folder and that’s why it was failing! Start-BitsTransfer only takes files. You can specify wildcards to select multiple files but you can’t point it to a folder.

So the following doesn’t work:

Start-BitsTransfer -Source c:\MyFolder -Destination \\remote\folder

1	Start-BitsTransfer -Source c:\MyFolder -Destination \\remote\folder

But this works:

Start-BitsTransfer -Source c:\MyFolder\*.* -Destination \\remote\folder

1	Start-BitsTransfer -Source c:\MyFolder\. -Destination \\remote\folder

Since Start-BitsTransfer supports wildcards it’s mostly fine unless your folder contains sub-folders and you want to copy these and/ or preserve the structure. Fortunately this is PowerShell so it’s just a matter of creating some wrappers around the cmdlet to support folders too. Like this one for instance. Or use CSV files like in this MSDN article.

One thing to keep in mind – by default Start-BitsTransfer has a default priority (specified via the -Priority switch) of Foreground. This competes with other applications so is probably not what you want. You alternatives are High, Normal, or Low – each of which does the transfer in the background and uses the idle bandwidth of the client for transfer (the priority determines which transfer job gets priority over the other similar BITS transfers).

Another thing to keep in mind is that BITS only really looks at the bandwidth availability of the client (when I say “client” I am not sure if it’s the sender or receiver – I didn’t read much into this). In a LAN environment it could be the case that the WAN side is saturated but the particular client you are targeting is idle – in this case BITS will use the full client bandwidth available to it even though the network itself doesn’t have any spare bandwidth (this was the case prior to BITS 2.0 but since then BITS can use an Internet Gateway Device to try and assess the bandwidth availability on the WAN side – this requires an IGD be find-able via UPnP and also that the Internet Gateway Device support such reporting, so I am not sure how well it works in practice). You can also use GPOs to control BITS bandwidth usage.

Anyhoo, this is not a BITS intro so I’ll leave it at that. :)

Once you start a BITS transfer you can also pause it via Suspend-BitsTransfer or cancel it via Remove-BitsTransfer. The latter will also delete any files that are already transferred, so if you just want to cancel but leave the transferred files as it is use Complete-BitsTransfer instead.

That’s all for now!

p.s. Almost forgot. You can also use BITS to download HTTP files. Like in this post for instance.

PowerCLI – List all VMs in a cluster along with number of snapshots and space usage

Posted: June 23rd, 2015 | Tags: powercli, powershell, vsphere | Category: PowerShell, Virtualization | §

More as a note to myself than anyone else, here’s a quick and dirty way to list all the VMs in a cluster with the number of snapshots, the used space, and the provisioned space. Yes you could get this information from the GUI but I like PowerShell and am trying to spend more time with PowerCLI.

Get-VM -Location (Get-Cluster -Name "My Cluster") | ft Name,PowerState,@{Name="Snapshots";Expression={(get-snapshot $_.Name | Measure-Object).Count}},@{Name="Used Space (GB)"; Expression={$_.UsedSpaceGB};FormatString="F0"},@{Name="Provisioned Space (GB)"; Expression={$_.ProvisionedSpaceGB}; FormatString="F0"},DatastoreIdList -AutoSize

Get-VM -Location (Get-Cluster -Name "My Cluster") | ft Name,PowerState,@{Name="Snapshots";Expression={(get-snapshot $_.Name | Measure-Object).Count}},@{Name="Used Space (GB)"; Expression={$_.UsedSpaceGB};FormatString="F0"},@{Name="Provisioned Space (GB)"; Expression={$_.ProvisionedSpaceGB}; FormatString="F0"},DatastoreIdList -AutoSize

PowerShell – Create a list of all Exchange mailboxes in an OU with mailbox size, Inbox size, etc

Posted: June 21st, 2015 | Tags: exchange, powershell | Category: PowerShell, Windows | §

As the title says, here’s a one-liner to quickly create a list of all Exchange mailboxes in an OU with mailbox size, Inbox size, Sent Items size, and the number of items in each of these folders.

Get-ADUser -filter * -SearchBase "ou=MyOffice,ou=DomainUsers,DC=MyDomain,DC=com" -Properties * | 
	?{ $_.msExchHomeServerName -like "*Exchange*" } | Sort-Object DisplayName | 
	Select-Object Name,@{Name="MailboxSize"; Expression={(Get-MailboxStatistics $_.Name).TotalItemSize}},@{Name="InboxSize"; Expression={(Get-MailboxFolderStatistics $_.Name -FolderScope Inbox | Select -First 1).FolderSize}},@{Name="InboxItems"; Expression={(Get-MailboxFolderStatistics $_.Name -FolderScope Inbox | Select -First 1).ItemsInFolder}},@{Name="SentSize"; Expression={(Get-MailboxFolderStatistics $_.Name -FolderScope SentItems | Select -First 1).FolderSize}},@{Name="SentItems"; Expression={(Get-MailboxFolderStatistics $_.Name -FolderScope SentItems | Select -First 1).ItemsInFolder}} | 
	Export-CSV -Path \path\to\file.csv

Get-ADUser -filter * -SearchBase "ou=MyOffice,ou=DomainUsers,DC=MyDomain,DC=com" -Properties * |

?{ $_.msExchHomeServerName -like "*Exchange*" } | Sort-Object DisplayName |

Select-Object Name,@{Name="MailboxSize"; Expression={(Get-MailboxStatistics $_.Name).TotalItemSize}},@{Name="InboxSize"; Expression={(Get-MailboxFolderStatistics $_.Name -FolderScope Inbox | Select -First 1).FolderSize}},@{Name="InboxItems"; Expression={(Get-MailboxFolderStatistics $_.Name -FolderScope Inbox | Select -First 1).ItemsInFolder}},@{Name="SentSize"; Expression={(Get-MailboxFolderStatistics $_.Name -FolderScope SentItems | Select -First 1).FolderSize}},@{Name="SentItems"; Expression={(Get-MailboxFolderStatistics $_.Name -FolderScope SentItems | Select -First 1).ItemsInFolder}} |

Export-CSV -Path \path\to\file.csv

Adding DHCP scope options via PowerShell

Posted: June 16th, 2015 | Tags: dhcp, powershell, powershell4 | Category: PowerShell, Windows | §

Our deployment team needed a few DHCP options set for all our scopes. There was a brickload of these scopes, no way I was going to go to each one of them and right-click add the options! I figured this was one for PowerShell!

Yes, I ended up taking longer with PowerShell coz I didn’t know the DHCP cmdlets but hey (1) now I know! and (2) next time I got to do this I can get it done way faster. And once I get this blog post written I can refer back to it that time.

The team wanted four options set:

Predefined Option 43 – 010400000000FF
Custom Option 60 – String – PXEClient
Predefined Option 66 – 10.x.x.x
Predefined Option 67 – boot\x86\wdsnbp.com

PowerShell 4 (included in Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2) has a DHCP module providing a bunch of DHCP cmdlets.

First things first – I needed to filter out the scopes I had to target. Get-DhcpServerv4Scope is your friend for that. It returns an array of scope objects – filter these the usual way. For example:

Get-DhcpServerv4Scope -ComputerName MyDHCPServer | ?{ $_.Name -notmatch "Voice" -and $_.Name -notmatch "Wireless" }

1	Get-DhcpServerv4Scope -ComputerName MyDHCPServer \| ?{ $_.Name -notmatch "Voice" -and $_.Name -notmatch "Wireless" }

Now, notice that one of the options to be added is a custom one. Meaning it doesn’t exist by default. Via GUI you would add it by right clicking on “IPv4” and selecting “Set Predefined Options” then adding the option definition. But I am doing the whole thing via PowerShell so here’s what I did:

Add-DhcpServerv4OptionDefinition -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -Name PXEClient -Description "PXE Support" -OptionId 060 -Type String

1	Add-DhcpServerv4OptionDefinition -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -Name PXEClient -Description "PXE Support" -OptionId 060 -Type String

To add an option the Set-DhcpServerv4OptionValue is your friend. For example:

Set-DhcpServerv4OptionValue -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -ScopeId "MyScope" -OptionId 060 -Value "PXEClient"

1	Set-DhcpServerv4OptionValue -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -ScopeId "MyScope" -OptionId 060 -Value "PXEClient"

I had a bit of trouble with option 43 because it has a vendor defined format and I couldn’t input the value as given. From the help pages though I learnt that I have to give it in chunks of hex. Like thus:

Set-DhcpServerv4OptionValue -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -ScopeId "MyScope" -OptionId 043 -Value 0x01,0x04,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0xFF

1	Set-DhcpServerv4OptionValue -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -ScopeId "MyScope" -OptionId 043 -Value 0x01,0x04,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0xFF

Wrapping it all up, here’s what I did (once I added the new definition):

Get-DhcpServerv4Scope -ComputerName MyDHCPServer | ?{ $_.Name -notmatch "Voice" -and $_.Name -notmatch "Wireless" } | %{ $Scope = $_.ScopeId;
	Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Working on $Scope" 
	Set-DhcpServerv4OptionValue -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -ScopeId $Scope -OptionId 043 -Value 0x01,0x04,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0xFF
	Set-DhcpServerv4OptionValue -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -ScopeId $Scope -OptionId 060 -Value "PXEClient"
	Set-DhcpServerv4OptionValue -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -ScopeId $Scope -OptionId 066 -Value "10.x.x.x"
	Set-DhcpServerv4OptionValue -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -ScopeId $Scope -OptionId 067 -Value "boot\x86\wdsnbp.com"
}

Get-DhcpServerv4Scope -ComputerName MyDHCPServer | ?{ $_.Name -notmatch "Voice" -and $_.Name -notmatch "Wireless" } | %{ $Scope = $_.ScopeId;

Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow "Working on $Scope"

Set-DhcpServerv4OptionValue -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -ScopeId $Scope -OptionId 043 -Value 0x01,0x04,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0xFF

Set-DhcpServerv4OptionValue -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -ScopeId $Scope -OptionId 060 -Value "PXEClient"

Set-DhcpServerv4OptionValue -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -ScopeId $Scope -OptionId 066 -Value "10.x.x.x"

Set-DhcpServerv4OptionValue -ComputerName MyDHCPServer -ScopeId $Scope -OptionId 067 -Value "boot\x86\wdsnbp.com"

}

And that’s it!

Use PowerShell to ping a device and email you when it’s up

Posted: April 24th, 2015 | Category: PowerShell | §

While rebooting our servers today as part of the monthly patch cycle, one of the servers took longer than usual to shutdown and restart. I didn’t want to waste time keeping an eye out on it so I whipped up a simple script that will first keep pinging the server (until it’s down), then keep pinging the server until it’s up, and finally send me an email when the server is reachable. Pretty straight-forward script, here it is with some commenting and extra bits tacked on:

 <#
  .SYNOPSIS
  Keeps sending ICMP packets to a device you specify until it's reachable, upon which an email is sent.
  .DESCRIPTION
  Keeps sending ICMP packets to a device you specify until it's reachable, upon which an email is sent to an address you specify from an address you specify. Optionally, the script can wait for the device to be not reachable, and then start sending ICMP packets. 
  .EXAMPLE
  .\Monitor-Device.ps1 -Computer www.rakhesh.com -To abc@example.com -From def@example.com
  .EXAMPLE
  .\Monitor-Device.ps1 -Computer www.rakhesh.com -Wait -To abc@example.com -From def@example.com
  .PARAMETER Device
  The name/ IP address of the device to query. 
  .PARAMETER Wait
  To wait or not to wait before querying?
  .PARAMETER To
  To address.
  .PARAMETER From
  From address.
  .PARAMETER SmtpServer
  Optional SMTP server to use. 
  #>

[CmdletBinding()]
Param (
  [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]
  [string]$Device, 

  [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]
  [string]$To, 

  [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]
  [string]$From,

  [Parameter(Mandatory=$False)]
  [string]$SmtpServer,

  [switch]$Wait
)

# I had a good mind to use regexps to validate the email addresses, but then I read http://www.regular-expressions.info/email.html. :)

if ($Wait) {
    # wait until the server is unreachable
    while (Test-Connection -ComputerName $Device -Quiet -Count 1 -BufferSize 16) {
        Write-Host "[$(get-date -format u)] Waiting for $Device to shutdown"
        Start-Sleep -Seconds 30
    }
}

while (!(Test-Connection -ComputerName $Device -Quiet -Count 1 -BufferSize 16)) {
    Write-Host "[$(get-date -format u)] Waiting for $Device to be reachable"
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 30 
}

if ($SmtpServer) { Send-MailMessage -Subject "$Device now reachable" -To $To -From $From -SmtpServer $SmtpServer } else { Send-MailMessage -Subject "$Device now reachable" -To $To -From $From}

.SYNOPSIS

Keeps sending ICMP packets to a device you specify until it's reachable, upon which an email is sent.

.DESCRIPTION

Keeps sending ICMP packets to a device you specify until it's reachable, upon which an email is sent to an address you specify from an address you specify. Optionally, the script can wait for the device to be not reachable, and then start sending ICMP packets.

.EXAMPLE

.\Monitor-Device.ps1 -Computer www.rakhesh.com -To abc@example.com -From def@example.com

.EXAMPLE

.\Monitor-Device.ps1 -Computer www.rakhesh.com -Wait -To abc@example.com -From def@example.com

.PARAMETER Device

The name/ IP address of the device to query.

.PARAMETER Wait

To wait or not to wait before querying?

.PARAMETER To

To address.

.PARAMETER From

From address.

.PARAMETER SmtpServer

Optional SMTP server to use.

[CmdletBinding()]

Param (

[Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]

[string]$Device,

[Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]

[string]$To,

[Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]

[string]$From,

[Parameter(Mandatory=$False)]

[string]$SmtpServer,

[switch]$Wait

)

# I had a good mind to use regexps to validate the email addresses, but then I read http://www.regular-expressions.info/email.html. :)

if ($Wait) {

# wait until the server is unreachable

while (Test-Connection -ComputerName $Device -Quiet -Count 1 -BufferSize 16) {

Write-Host "[$(get-date -format u)] Waiting for $Device to shutdown"

Start-Sleep -Seconds 30

}

while (!(Test-Connection -ComputerName $Device -Quiet -Count 1 -BufferSize 16)) {

Write-Host "[$(get-date -format u)] Waiting for $Device to be reachable"

Start-Sleep -Seconds 30

}

if ($SmtpServer) { Send-MailMessage -Subject "$Device now reachable" -To $To -From $From -SmtpServer $SmtpServer } else { Send-MailMessage -Subject "$Device now reachable" -To $To -From $From}

In a corporate environment you do not need to specify the SMTP server as it’s automatically picked up from the $PSEmailServer variable.

If you specify an SMTP server that requires authentication though you can pass this via the -Credential switch to Send-MailMessage. I didn’t add that above coz I didn’t need it but while typing this post I realize that that’s something others might find of use. Especially if you are using a 3rd party SMTP server that requires authentication.

For more Send-MailMessage switches check out this TechNet page and blog post.

Further updates to this script will be at GitHub.

Search Firefox bookmarks using PowerShell

Posted: March 11th, 2015 | Tags: bookmarks, firefox, functions, json, powershell, recursion | Category: PowerShell | §

I was on Firefox today and wanted to search for a bookmark. I found the bookmark easily, but unlike Chrome Firefox has no way of showing which folder the bookmark is present in. So I created a PowerShell script to do just that. Mainly because I wanted some excuse to code in PowerShell and also because it felt like an interesting problem.

PowerShell can’t directly control Firefox as it doesn’t have a COM interface (unlike IE). So you’ll have to manually export the bookmarks. Good for us the export is into a JSON file, and PowerShell can read JSON files natively (since version 3.0 I think). The ConvertFrom-JSON cmdlet is your friend here. So export bookmarks and read them into a variable:

$bookmarks = Get-Content \path\to\bookmarks-2015-03-11.json | ConvertFrom-Json

1	$bookmarks = Get-Content \path\to\bookmarks-2015-03-11.json \| ConvertFrom-Json

This gives me a tree structure of bookmarks.

PS> $bookmarks


guid         : root________
title        :
index        : 0
dateAdded    : 1422217616861000
lastModified : 1423076331270000
id           : 1
type         : text/x-moz-place-container
root         : placesRoot
children     : {@{guid=menu________; title=Bookmarks Menu; index=0; dateAdded=1413121004000000; lastModified=1426013312897000; id=2; type=text/x-moz-place-container; root=bookmarksMenuFolder;
               children=System.Object[]}, @{guid=toolbar_____; title=Bookmarks Toolbar; index=1; dateAdded=1413121004000000; lastModified=1426014543697000; id=3; type=text/x-moz-place-container;
               root=toolbarFolder; children=System.Object[]}, @{guid=unfiled_____; title=Unsorted Bookmarks; index=3; dateAdded=1357715408000000; lastModified=1426044593123000; id=5;
               type=text/x-moz-place-container; root=unfiledBookmarksFolder}}

PS> $bookmarks

guid : root________

title :

index : 0

dateAdded : 1422217616861000

lastModified : 1423076331270000

id : 1

type : text/x-moz-place-container

root : placesRoot

children : {@{guid=menu________; title=Bookmarks Menu; index=0; dateAdded=1413121004000000; lastModified=1426013312897000; id=2; type=text/x-moz-place-container; root=bookmarksMenuFolder;

children=System.Object[]}, @{guid=toolbar_____; title=Bookmarks Toolbar; index=1; dateAdded=1413121004000000; lastModified=1426014543697000; id=3; type=text/x-moz-place-container;

root=toolbarFolder; children=System.Object[]}, @{guid=unfiled_____; title=Unsorted Bookmarks; index=3; dateAdded=1357715408000000; lastModified=1426044593123000; id=5;

type=text/x-moz-place-container; root=unfiledBookmarksFolder}}

Notice the children property. It is an array of further objects – links to the first-level folders, basically. Each of these in turn have links to the second-level folders and so on.

The type property is a good way of identifying if a node is a folder or a bookmark. If it’s text/x-moz-place-container then it’s a folder. If it’s text/x-moz-place then it’s a bookmark. (Alternatively one could also test whether the children property is $null).

So how do we go through this tree and search each node? Initially I was going to iteratively do it by going to each node. Then I remembered recursion (see! no exercise like this goes wasted! I had forgotten about recursion). So that’s easy then.

Make a function. Pass it the bookmarks object.
Said function looks at the object passed to it.
- If it’s a bookmark it searches the title and lets us know if it’s a match.
- If it’s a folder, the function calls itself with the next level folder as input.

Here’s the function:

function Search-FxBookmarks {
    param($Bookmarks, [string]$PathSoFar="", [string]$SearchString)
    
    $NodeName = $Bookmarks.title
    $NewPath = "$PathSoFar\$NodeName"

    if ($Bookmarks.type -eq "text/x-moz-place-container") {
        # We are on a non-leaf node
        # Check if the non-leaf node name itself matches the search string
        if ($NodeName -match $SearchString) { Write-Host -ForegroundColor Cyan "$PathSoFar\$NodeName" } 

        # Then call ourselves recursively for each of the children
        foreach ($Bookmark in $Bookmarks.children) {
            Search-FxBookmarks -Bookmarks $Bookmark -PathSoFar $NewPath -SearchString $SearchString
        }
    }

    if ($Bookmarks.type -eq "text/x-moz-place") {
        # We are on a leaf node, search if the title matches the search string
        if ($NodeName -match $SearchString) { Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "$PathSoFar\$NodeName" } 
    }
}

function Search-FxBookmarks {

param($Bookmarks, [string]$PathSoFar="", [string]$SearchString)

$NodeName = $Bookmarks.title

$NewPath = "$PathSoFar\$NodeName"

if ($Bookmarks.type -eq "text/x-moz-place-container") {

# We are on a non-leaf node

# Check if the non-leaf node name itself matches the search string

if ($NodeName -match $SearchString) { Write-Host -ForegroundColor Cyan "$PathSoFar\$NodeName" }

# Then call ourselves recursively for each of the children

foreach ($Bookmark in $Bookmarks.children) {

Search-FxBookmarks -Bookmarks $Bookmark -PathSoFar $NewPath -SearchString $SearchString

}

if ($Bookmarks.type -eq "text/x-moz-place") {

# We are on a leaf node, search if the title matches the search string

if ($NodeName -match $SearchString) { Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "$PathSoFar\$NodeName" }

}

I decided to search folder names too. And just to distinguish between folder names and bookmark names, I use different colors.

Call the function thus (after exporting & reading the bookmarks into a variable):

Search-FxBookmarks -Bookmarks $bookmarks -SearchString "whatever"

1	Search-FxBookmarks -Bookmarks $bookmarks -SearchString "whatever"

Here’s a screenshot of the output:

A brief intro to XML & PowerShell

Posted: March 10th, 2015 | Tags: powershell, xml | Category: PowerShell | §

I am dealing with some XML and PowerShell for this thing I am working on. Thought it would be worth giving a brief intro to XML so the concepts are clear to myself and anyone else.

From this site, a simple XML based food menu (which I’ve slightly modified):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO8859-1" ?>
<breakfast-menu>
  <food offer="Today's Special">
    <name>Belgian Waffles</name>
    <price>$5.95</price>
    <description>two of our famous Belgian Waffles with plenty of real maple syrup</description>
    <calories>650</calories>
  </food>
  <food>
    <name>Strawberry Belgian Waffles</name>
    <price>$7.95</price>
    <description>light Belgian waffles covered with strawberrys and whipped cream</description>
    <calories>900</calories>
  </food>
  <food>
    <name>Berry-Berry Belgian Waffles</name>
    <price>$8.95</price>
    <description>light Belgian waffles covered with an assortment of fresh berries and whipped cream</description>
    <calories>900</calories>
  </food>
  <food>
    <name>French Toast</name>
    <price>$4.50</price>
    <description>thick slices made from our homemade sourdough bread</description>
    <calories>600</calories>
  </food>
  <food>
    <name>Homestyle Breakfast</name>
    <price>$6.95</price>
    <description>two eggs, bacon or sausage, toast, and our ever-popular hash browns</description>
    <calories>950</calories>
  </food>
</breakfast-menu>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO8859-1" ?>

<breakfast-menu>

<name>Belgian Waffles</name>

<description>two of our famous Belgian Waffles with plenty of real maple syrup</description>

</food>

<food>

<name>Strawberry Belgian Waffles</name>

<description>light Belgian waffles covered with strawberrys and whipped cream</description>

</food>

<food>

<name>Berry-Berry Belgian Waffles</name>

<description>light Belgian waffles covered with an assortment of fresh berries and whipped cream</description>

</food>

<food>

<name>French Toast</name>

<description>thick slices made from our homemade sourdough bread</description>

</food>

<food>

<name>Homestyle Breakfast</name>

<description>two eggs, bacon or sausage, toast, and our ever-popular hash browns</description>

</food>

</breakfast-menu>

It’s obvious what the food menu is about. It’s a breakfast menu. It consists of food entries. Each food entry consists of the name of the food, its price, a description, and calories. One of these food items is today’s special, and is marked accordingly. Straightforward.

Items such as <name> and </name> are called tags. You have an opening tag <name> and a closing tag </name>. Between these tags you have an some content (e.g. “French Toast”). Tags can have attributes (e.g. offer = “Today’s Special!”). The entirety of an opening and ending tag, their attributes, and the content enclosed by these tags is called an element.

In the example above, the element breakfast-menu is the the root element. If you visualize the listing above as a tree, you can see it all starts from breakfast-menu. This root element has 5 children elements, each of which is a food element. These children elements are also sibling elements to each other. Each food element in turn has 4 different children elements (name, price, etc), who are themselves sibling elements to each other.

This site has a really good intro to XML. And this site is is a good reference on the various types such as elements, attributes, CDATA, etc.

XML Notepad is a good way to view and edit/ create XML documents. It gives a hierarchical structure too that’s easy to understand. Here’s the above XML viewed through XML Notepad.

Notice how XML Notepad puts some of the elements as folders. To create a new sibling element to the food element you would right click on the parent element breakfast-menu and create a new child element.

This will create an element that does not look like a folder. But if you right click this element and create a new child, then XML Notepad changes the icon to look like a folder.

Just thought I’d point this out so it’s clear. An element containing another element has nothing special to it. In XML Notepad or when viewing the XML through a browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc they might be formatted differently, but there’s nothing special about them. Everyone’s an element just that some have children and so appear different.

In PowerShell you can read an XML file by casting it into an [xml] accelerator thus:

[xml]$SomeVariable = Get-Content .\path\to\file.xml

1	[xml]$SomeVariable = Get-Content .\path\to\file.xml

Using the above XML, for instance, I can then do things like this:

PS> [xml]$temp = Get-Content .\tmp.xml
PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'

food
----
{Belgian Waffles, Strawberry Belgian Waffles, Berry-Berry Belgian Waffles, French Toast...}


PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.food

name                                       price                                      description                               calories
----                                       -----                                      -----------                               --------
Belgian Waffles                            $5.95                                      two of our famous Belgian Waffles with... 650
Strawberry Belgian Waffles                 $7.95                                      light Belgian waffles covered with str... 900
Berry-Berry Belgian Waffles                $8.95                                      light Belgian waffles covered with an ... 900
French Toast                               $4.50                                      thick slices made from our homemade so... 600
Homestyle Breakfast                        $6.95                                      two eggs, bacon or sausage, toast, and... 950

PS> [xml]$temp = Get-Content .\tmp.xml

PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'

food

----

{Belgian Waffles, Strawberry Belgian Waffles, Berry-Berry Belgian Waffles, French Toast...}

PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.food

name price description calories

---- ----- ----------- --------

Belgian Waffles $5.95 two of our famous Belgian Waffles with... 650

Strawberry Belgian Waffles $7.95 light Belgian waffles covered with str... 900

Berry-Berry Belgian Waffles $8.95 light Belgian waffles covered with an ... 900

French Toast $4.50 thick slices made from our homemade so... 600

Homestyle Breakfast $6.95 two eggs, bacon or sausage, toast, and... 950

Here’s a list of methods available to this object:

PS> $temp | Get-Member | ?{ $_.MemberType -eq "Method" } | Format-Wide -Column 3


AppendChild                      Clone                            CloneNode
CreateAttribute                  CreateCDataSection               CreateComment
CreateDocumentFragment           CreateDocumentType               CreateElement
CreateEntityReference            CreateNavigator                  CreateNode
CreateProcessingInstruction      CreateSignificantWhitespace      CreateTextNode
CreateWhitespace                 CreateXmlDeclaration             Equals
GetElementById                   GetElementsByTagName             GetEnumerator
GetHashCode                      GetNamespaceOfPrefix             GetPrefixOfNamespace
GetType                          ImportNode                       InsertAfter
InsertBefore                     Load                             LoadXml
Normalize                        PrependChild                     ReadNode
RemoveAll                        RemoveChild                      ReplaceChild
Save                             SelectNodes                      SelectSingleNode
Supports                         Validate                         WriteContentTo
WriteTo

PS> $temp | Get-Member | ?{ $_.MemberType -eq "Method" } | Format-Wide -Column 3

AppendChild Clone CloneNode

CreateAttribute CreateCDataSection CreateComment

CreateDocumentFragment CreateDocumentType CreateElement

CreateEntityReference CreateNavigator CreateNode

CreateProcessingInstruction CreateSignificantWhitespace CreateTextNode

CreateWhitespace CreateXmlDeclaration Equals

GetElementById GetElementsByTagName GetEnumerator

GetHashCode GetNamespaceOfPrefix GetPrefixOfNamespace

GetType ImportNode InsertAfter

InsertBefore Load LoadXml

Normalize PrependChild ReadNode

RemoveAll RemoveChild ReplaceChild

Save SelectNodes SelectSingleNode

Supports Validate WriteContentTo

WriteTo

The methods vary if you are looking at a specific element:

PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.food | Get-Member | ?{ $_.MemberType -eq "Method" } | Format-Wide -Column 3


AppendChild                      Clone                            CloneNode
CreateNavigator                  Equals                           GetAttribute
GetAttributeNode                 GetElementsByTagName             GetEnumerator
GetHashCode                      GetNamespaceOfPrefix             GetPrefixOfNamespace
GetType                          HasAttribute                     InsertAfter
InsertBefore                     Normalize                        PrependChild
RemoveAll                        RemoveAllAttributes              RemoveAttribute
RemoveAttributeAt                RemoveAttributeNode              RemoveChild
ReplaceChild                     SelectNodes                      SelectSingleNode
SetAttribute                     SetAttributeNode                 Supports
WriteContentTo                   WriteTo

PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.food | Get-Member | ?{ $_.MemberType -eq "Method" } | Format-Wide -Column 3

AppendChild Clone CloneNode

CreateNavigator Equals GetAttribute

GetAttributeNode GetElementsByTagName GetEnumerator

GetHashCode GetNamespaceOfPrefix GetPrefixOfNamespace

GetType HasAttribute InsertAfter

InsertBefore Normalize PrependChild

RemoveAll RemoveAllAttributes RemoveAttribute

RemoveAttributeAt RemoveAttributeNode RemoveChild

ReplaceChild SelectNodes SelectSingleNode

SetAttribute SetAttributeNode Supports

WriteContentTo WriteTo

Say I want to add a new food element to the breakfast-menu element. The AppendChild() method looks interesting.

You can’t simply add a child by giving a name because it expects as input an object of type Xml.XmlNode.

PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.AppendChild

OverloadDefinitions
-------------------
System.Xml.XmlNode AppendChild(System.Xml.XmlNode newChild)

PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.AppendChild

OverloadDefinitions

-------------------

System.Xml.XmlNode AppendChild(System.Xml.XmlNode newChild)

So you have to first create the element separately and then pass that to the AppendChild() method.

Only the XML root object has methods to create new elements none of the elements below it have (notice the $temp output above). So I start from there:

# create variables that hold new elements called food, name, and price
PS> $newFoodElem = $temp.CreateElement("food")
PS> $newNameElem = $temp.CreateElement("name")
PS> $newPriceElem = $temp.CreateElement("price")

# create variables holding content for name and price
PS> $newNameContent = $temp.CreateTextNode("Italian Waffles")
PS> $newPriceContent = $temp.CreateTextNode("USD 16.00") # beware of using $ as it gets treated as a variable!

# update, I learnt later that it's also possible to add content to an element this way: 
# $newNameElem.InnerText = "Italian Waffles"
# $newPriceElem.InnterText = "USD 16.00"
# If I do this way I don't have to append as below either.

# append the name & price content to the elements themselves
PS> $newNameElem.AppendChild($newNameContent)


Name            : #text
LocalName       : #text
NodeType        : Text
ParentNode      : name
Value           : Italian Waffles
InnerText       : Italian Waffles
Data            : Italian Waffles
Length          : 15
PreviousSibling :
NextSibling     :
ChildNodes      : {}
Attributes      :
OwnerDocument   : #document
FirstChild      :
LastChild       :
HasChildNodes   : False
NamespaceURI    :
Prefix          :
IsReadOnly      : False
OuterXml        : Italian Waffles
InnerXml        :
SchemaInfo      : System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaInfo
BaseURI         :



PS> $newPriceElem.AppendChild($newPriceContent)


Name            : #text
LocalName       : #text
NodeType        : Text
ParentNode      : price
Value           : USD 16.00
InnerText       : USD 16.00
Data            : USD 16.00
Length          : 3
PreviousSibling :
NextSibling     :
ChildNodes      : {}
Attributes      :
OwnerDocument   : #document
FirstChild      :
LastChild       :
HasChildNodes   : False
NamespaceURI    :
Prefix          :
IsReadOnly      : False
OuterXml        : USD 16.00
InnerXml        :
SchemaInfo      : System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaInfo
BaseURI         :

# now append these two elements to the parent food element
PS> $newFoodElem.AppendChild($newNameElem)

#text
-----
Italian Waffles


PS> $newFoodElem.AppendChild($newPriceElem)

#text
-----
USD 16.00


# confirm
PS> $newFoodElem

name                                             price
----                                             -----
Italian Waffles                                  USD 16.00

# and finally append this food element to breakfast-menu!
PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.AppendChild($newFoodElem)

name                                             price
----                                             -----
Italian Waffles                                  USD 16.00

# confirm all is well
PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.food


offer       : Today's Special
name        : Belgian Waffles
price       : $5.95
description : two of our famous Belgian Waffles with plenty of real maple syrup
calories    : 650

name        : Strawberry Belgian Waffles
price       : $7.95
description : light Belgian waffles covered with strawberrys and whipped cream
calories    : 900

name        : Berry-Berry Belgian Waffles
price       : $8.95
description : light Belgian waffles covered with an assortment of fresh berries and whipped cream calories    : 900

name        : French Toast
price       : $4.50
description : thick slices made from our homemade sourdough bread
calories    : 600

name        : Homestyle Breakfast
price       : $6.95
description : two eggs, bacon or sausage, toast, and our ever-popular hash browns
calories    : 950

name  : Italian Waffles
price : USD 16.00

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

130

131

# create variables that hold new elements called food, name, and price

PS> $newFoodElem = $temp.CreateElement("food")

PS> $newNameElem = $temp.CreateElement("name")

PS> $newPriceElem = $temp.CreateElement("price")

# create variables holding content for name and price

PS> $newNameContent = $temp.CreateTextNode("Italian Waffles")

PS> $newPriceContent = $temp.CreateTextNode("USD 16.00") # beware of using $ as it gets treated as a variable!

# update, I learnt later that it's also possible to add content to an element this way:

# $newNameElem.InnerText = "Italian Waffles"

# $newPriceElem.InnterText = "USD 16.00"

# If I do this way I don't have to append as below either.

# append the name & price content to the elements themselves

PS> $newNameElem.AppendChild($newNameContent)

Name : #text

LocalName : #text

NodeType : Text

ParentNode : name

Value : Italian Waffles

InnerText : Italian Waffles

Data : Italian Waffles

Length : 15

PreviousSibling :

NextSibling :

ChildNodes : {}

Attributes :

OwnerDocument : #document

FirstChild :

LastChild :

HasChildNodes : False

NamespaceURI :

Prefix :

IsReadOnly : False

OuterXml : Italian Waffles

InnerXml :

SchemaInfo : System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaInfo

BaseURI :

PS> $newPriceElem.AppendChild($newPriceContent)

Name : #text

LocalName : #text

NodeType : Text

ParentNode : price

Value : USD 16.00

InnerText : USD 16.00

Data : USD 16.00

Length : 3

PreviousSibling :

NextSibling :

ChildNodes : {}

Attributes :

OwnerDocument : #document

FirstChild :

LastChild :

HasChildNodes : False

NamespaceURI :

Prefix :

IsReadOnly : False

OuterXml : USD 16.00

InnerXml :

SchemaInfo : System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaInfo

BaseURI :

# now append these two elements to the parent food element

PS> $newFoodElem.AppendChild($newNameElem)

#text

-----

Italian Waffles

PS> $newFoodElem.AppendChild($newPriceElem)

#text

-----

USD 16.00

# confirm

PS> $newFoodElem

name price

---- -----

Italian Waffles USD 16.00

# and finally append this food element to breakfast-menu!

PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.AppendChild($newFoodElem)

name price

---- -----

Italian Waffles USD 16.00

# confirm all is well

PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.food

offer : Today's Special

name : Belgian Waffles

price : $5.95

description : two of our famous Belgian Waffles with plenty of real maple syrup

calories : 650

name : Strawberry Belgian Waffles

price : $7.95

description : light Belgian waffles covered with strawberrys and whipped cream

calories : 900

name : Berry-Berry Belgian Waffles

price : $8.95

description : light Belgian waffles covered with an assortment of fresh berries and whipped cream calories : 900

name : French Toast

price : $4.50

description : thick slices made from our homemade sourdough bread

calories : 600

name : Homestyle Breakfast

price : $6.95

description : two eggs, bacon or sausage, toast, and our ever-popular hash browns

calories : 950

name : Italian Waffles

price : USD 16.00

Just for kicks here’s a snippet of the last two entries from the XML file itself:

PS> $temp.Save("C:\Users\Rakhesh\Desktop\blah.xml")
PS> Get-Content .\blah.xml

1 2	PS> $temp.Save("C:\Users\Rakhesh\Desktop\blah.xml") PS> Get-Content .\blah.xml

  <food>
    <name>Homestyle Breakfast</name>
    <price>$6.95</price>
    <description>two eggs, bacon or sausage, toast, and our ever-popular hash browns</description >
    <calories>950</calories>
  </food>
  <food>
    <name>Italian Waffles</name>
    <price>USD 16.00</price>
  </food>

<food>

<name>Homestyle Breakfast</name>

<description>two eggs, bacon or sausage, toast, and our ever-popular hash browns</description >

</food>

<food>

<name>Italian Waffles</name>

</food>

Yay! That’s a crazy amount of work though just to get a new element added!

Before I forget, while writing this post I came across the following links. Good stuff:

A Stack Overflow post on pretty much what I described above (but in a more concise form, so easier to read)
Posts 1, 2, and 3 on XML and PowerShell from the The Scripting Guys
A post by Jeffrey Snover on generating XML documents from PowerShell
Yet another Stack Overflow post with an answer that’s good to keep in mind

Removing an element seems to be easier. Each element has a RemoveAll() method that removes itself. So I get the element I want and invoke the method on itself:

PS> ($temp.'breakfast-menu'.food | ?{ $_.name -eq "Italian Waffles" }).RemoveAll()

1	PS> ($temp.'breakfast-menu'.food \| ?{ $_.name -eq "Italian Waffles" }).RemoveAll()

Or since the result of the $temp.'breakfast-menu.food' element is an array of child elements, I can directly reference the one I want and do RemoveAll().

PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.food[2].RemoveAll()

1	PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.food[2].RemoveAll()

Or I can assign a variable to the child I want to remove and then use the RemoveChild() method.

PS> $delElem = $temp.'breakfast-menu'.food[1]                       
PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.RemoveChild($delElem)                    
                                                                                             
name                     price                    description             calories           
----                     -----                    -----------             --------           
Strawberry Belgian Wa... $7.95                    light Belgian waffle... 900

PS> $delElem = $temp.'breakfast-menu'.food[1]

PS> $temp.'breakfast-menu'.RemoveChild($delElem)

name price description calories

---- ----- ----------- --------

Strawberry Belgian Wa... $7.95 light Belgian waffle... 900

That’s all for now!

Using PowerShell to insert a space between characters (alt method using regular expressions and -replace)

Posted: March 9th, 2015 | Tags: certificate store, fingerprint, join, powershell, regex, regexp, split, thumbprint | Category: PowerShell | §

A reader (thanks Jeff!) of my previous post wrote to mention that there’s an even easier way to insert a space between characters. Use the -replace operator thus:

-replace '([0-9a-f]{2})', '$1 '

1	-replace '([0-9a-f]{2})', '$1 '

So simple!

The -replace help page doesn’t give much details on using regular expressions. Jeff pointed to the Regex.Replace() method help page, which is where he got the idea from. I tried to search for more info on this and came across this post by Don Jones and this Wiki page on TechNet.

I had wanted to use the -replace operator initially but was stumped at how to get automatic variables like $1, $2, $3, … for each of the (bracketed) matches it finds. Turns out there’s no need to do that! Each match is a $1.

ps. From Jeff’s code I also realized I was over-matching in my regular expression. The thumbprints are hex characters so I only need to match [0-9A-F] rather than [0-9A-Z]. For reference here’s the final code to get certificate thumbprints and display with a space:

Get-ChildItem Cert:\LocalMachine\Root | Format-Table @{ Name = "Thumbprint"; Expression = { $_.Thumbprint -replace '([0-9A-f]{2})', '$1 ' }}, Subject -AutoSize

1	Get-ChildItem Cert:\LocalMachine\Root \| Format-Table @{ Name = "Thumbprint"; Expression = { $_.Thumbprint -replace '([0-9A-f]{2})', '$1 ' }}, Subject -AutoSize

Using PowerShell to insert a space between characters (or: Using PowerShell to show certificate fingerprints in a friendly format)

Posted: March 8th, 2015 | Tags: certificate store, fingerprint, join, powershell, regex, regexp, split, thumbprint | Category: PowerShell | §

I should be doing something else, but I got looking at the installed certificates in my system. That’s partly prompted by a desire to make a list of certificates installed on my Windows 8.1 machines, and read up on how the various browsers use these certificates (my understanding is that Firefox and Chrome have their own stores in addition (or in exclusion?) to the default Windows certificate store).

Anyways, I did the following to get a list of all the trusted CA in my certificate store:

PS> Get-ChildItem Cert:\LocalMachine\Root


    Directory: Microsoft.PowerShell.Security\Certificate::LocalMachine\Root


Thumbprint                                Subject
----------                                -------
D5658EF700F9B4C0CCDB095E491EF4B84DDD4A09  CN=LONSDC01.cloudapp.net
CDD4EEAE6000AC7F40C3802C171E30148030C072  CN=Microsoft Root Certificate Authority, DC=...
BE36A4562FB2EE05DBB3D32323ADF445084ED656  CN=Thawte Timestamping CA, OU=Thawte Certifi... 
A43489159A520F0D93D032CCAF37E7FE20A8B419  CN=Microsoft Root Authority, OU=Microsoft Co... 
8F43288AD272F3103B6FB1428485EA3014C0BCFE  CN=Microsoft Root Certificate Authority 2011...
<snip>

PS> Get-ChildItem Cert:\LocalMachine\Root

Directory: Microsoft.PowerShell.Security\Certificate::LocalMachine\Root

Thumbprint Subject

---------- -------

D5658EF700F9B4C0CCDB095E491EF4B84DDD4A09 CN=LONSDC01.cloudapp.net

CDD4EEAE6000AC7F40C3802C171E30148030C072 CN=Microsoft Root Certificate Authority, DC=...

BE36A4562FB2EE05DBB3D32323ADF445084ED656 CN=Thawte Timestamping CA, OU=Thawte Certifi...

A43489159A520F0D93D032CCAF37E7FE20A8B419 CN=Microsoft Root Authority, OU=Microsoft Co...

8F43288AD272F3103B6FB1428485EA3014C0BCFE CN=Microsoft Root Certificate Authority 2011...

<snip>

I quickly got side tracked from that when I noticed the thumbprint and wondered what I could do to space it out. What I meant is: if you go to your browser and check the thumbprint/ fingerprint, it is usually a bunch of 40 characters but with spaces between every two characters. Like this: D5 65 8E .... In contrast the PowerShell output gave everything together. The two are same, but I needed and excuse to try something, so wondered how I could present it differently.

Initially I thought of using the -replace operator but then I thought it might be better to -split and -join them. Both will make use of regular expressions I think, and that’s my ultimate goal here – to think a bit on what regular expressions I can use and remind myself on the caveats of these operators.

The -split operator can take a regular expression as the delimiter. Whenever the expression matches, the matched characters are considered to identify the end of the sub-string, and so the part before it is returned. In my case I want to split along every two characters, so I could do something like this:

-split "[a-z0-9]{2}"

1	-split "[a-z0-9]{2}"

This, however, will return no output because every block of two characters is considered as the delimiter and split off, but there then remains nothing else to output. So the result is a bunch of empty lines.

To make the delimiter show in the output I can enclose it within brackets:

-split "([a-z0-9]{2})"

1	-split "([a-z0-9]{2})"

Now the output will be an empty line followed a block of two characters (the delimiter), followed by an empty line, and so on …

I can’t -join these together with a delimiter because then the empty lines too get pulled in. Here’s an example -join using the + character as delimiter so you can see what happens:

PS> 2796BAE63F1801E277261BA0D77770028F20EEE4" -split "([a-z0-9]{2})" -join "+"
+27++96++BA++E6++3F++18++01++E2++77++26++1B++A0++D7++77++70++02++8F++20++EE++E4+

1 2	PS> 2796BAE63F1801E277261BA0D77770028F20EEE4" -split "([a-z0-9]{2})" -join "+" +27++96++BA++E6++3F++18++01++E2++77++26++1B++A0++D7++77++70++02++8F++20++EE++E4+

What’s happening is that the empty objects too get sandwiched between the output we want.

Now, if only there was a way to cull out the empty objects. Why of course, that’s what the Where-Object cmdlet can do!

Like this perhaps (I only let through non-empty objects):

PS> "2796BAE63F1801E277261BA0D77770028F20EEE4" -split "([a-z0-9]{2})"  | ?{ $_ -notmatch '^$' }

1	PS> "2796BAE63F1801E277261BA0D77770028F20EEE4" -split "([a-z0-9]{2})" \| ?{ $_ -notmatch '^$' }

Or perhaps (I only let through objects with non-zero length):

PS> "2796BAE63F1801E277261BA0D77770028F20EEE4" -split "([a-z0-9]{2})"  | ?{ $_.length -ne 0 }

1	PS> "2796BAE63F1801E277261BA0D77770028F20EEE4" -split "([a-z0-9]{2})" \| ?{ $_.length -ne 0 }

Or perhaps (I only let through non-empty objects; the \S matches anything that’s not whitespace):

PS> "2796BAE63F1801E277261BA0D77770028F20EEE4" -split "([a-z0-9]{2})"  | ?{ $_ -match '\S' }

1	PS> "2796BAE63F1801E277261BA0D77770028F20EEE4" -split "([a-z0-9]{2})" \| ?{ $_ -match '\S' }

Using any one of these I can now properly -join:

PS> ("2796BAE63F1801E277261BA0D77770028F20EEE4" -split "([a-z0-9]{2})"  | ?{ $_.length -ne 0 }) -join " "
27 96 BA E6 3F 18 01 E2 77 26 1B A0 D7 77 70 02 8F 20 EE E4

1 2	PS> ("2796BAE63F1801E277261BA0D77770028F20EEE4" -split "([a-z0-9]{2})" \| ?{ $_.length -ne 0 }) -join " " 27 96 BA E6 3F 18 01 E2 77 26 1B A0 D7 77 70 02 8F 20 EE E4

And finally what I set out to get in the first place:

PS> Get-ChildItem Cert:\LocalMachine\Root | ft @{Name="Thumbprint"; Expression={($_.Thumbprint -split "([a-z0-9]{2})" | ?{ $_.length -ne 0 }) -join " " }},Subject -AutoSize

Thumbprint                                                  Subject
----------                                                  -------
D5 65 8E F7 00 F9 B4 C0 CC DB 09 5E 49 1E F4 B8 4D DD 4A 09 CN=LONSDC01.cloudapp.net
CD D4 EE AE 60 00 AC 7F 40 C3 80 2C 17 1E 30 14 80 30 C0 72 CN=Microsoft Root Certifi... 
BE 36 A4 56 2F B2 EE 05 DB B3 D3 23 23 AD F4 45 08 4E D6 56 CN=Thawte Timestamping CA... 
A4 34 89 15 9A 52 0F 0D 93 D0 32 CC AF 37 E7 FE 20 A8 B4 19 CN=Microsoft Root Authori... 
8F 43 28 8A D2 72 F3 10 3B 6F B1 42 84 85 EA 30 14 C0 BC FE CN=Microsoft Root Certifi...
<snip>

PS> Get-ChildItem Cert:\LocalMachine\Root | ft @{Name="Thumbprint"; Expression={($_.Thumbprint -split "([a-z0-9]{2})" | ?{ $_.length -ne 0 }) -join " " }},Subject -AutoSize

Thumbprint Subject

---------- -------

D5 65 8E F7 00 F9 B4 C0 CC DB 09 5E 49 1E F4 B8 4D DD 4A 09 CN=LONSDC01.cloudapp.net

CD D4 EE AE 60 00 AC 7F 40 C3 80 2C 17 1E 30 14 80 30 C0 72 CN=Microsoft Root Certifi...

BE 36 A4 56 2F B2 EE 05 DB B3 D3 23 23 AD F4 45 08 4E D6 56 CN=Thawte Timestamping CA...

A4 34 89 15 9A 52 0F 0D 93 D0 32 CC AF 37 E7 FE 20 A8 B4 19 CN=Microsoft Root Authori...

8F 43 28 8A D2 72 F3 10 3B 6F B1 42 84 85 EA 30 14 C0 BC FE CN=Microsoft Root Certifi...

<snip>

Update: While writing this post I discovered one more method. Only let through objects that exist (so obvious, why didn’t I think of that!):

PS> "2796BAE63F1801E277261BA0D77770028F20EEE4" -split "([a-z0-9]{2})"  | ?{ $_  }

1	PS> "2796BAE63F1801E277261BA0D77770028F20EEE4" -split "([a-z0-9]{2})" \| ?{ $_ }

Also check out this wiki entry for the Split() method to the String object. Doesn’t work with regular expressions, but is otherwise useful. Especially since it can remove empty entries by default.

Update2: See this follow-up post for a typo in my regexp above as well as an alternate (simpler!) way of doing the above.

Updating PowerShell help on an air-gapped machine

Posted: February 28th, 2015 | Tags: export-clixml, import-clixml, save-help, update-help | Category: PowerShell | §

My virtual lab is disconnected from the real Internet so there’s no way to run Update-Help and get the latest help files. Thankfully there’s Save-Help which can be used to download the help files on another machine and then transfer them over.

By default Save-Help only downloads help files for modules installed on the machine it’s run on. That doesn’t cut it for me because my host machine (where I run Save-Help) doesn’t have as many modules as my guest machines. You can specify the names of modules to download help files for, but simply specifying the names does not work.

PS> Save-Help -Module NFS -DestinationPath C:\Users\Rakhesh\Downloads\temp
Save-Help : No Windows PowerShell modules were found that match the following pattern: NFS. Verify the pattern and
then try the command again.
At line:1 char:1
+ Save-Help -Module NFS -DestinationPath C:\Users\Rakhesh\Downloads\temp
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (NFS:String) [Save-Help], Exception
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ModuleNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SaveHelpCommand

PS> Save-Help -Module NFS -DestinationPath C:\Users\Rakhesh\Downloads\temp

Save-Help : No Windows PowerShell modules were found that match the following pattern: NFS. Verify the pattern and

then try the command again.

At line:1 char:1

+ Save-Help -Module NFS -DestinationPath C:\Users\Rakhesh\Downloads\temp

+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

+ CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (NFS:String) [Save-Help], Exception

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ModuleNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SaveHelpCommand

That’s because Save-Help looks for the module in files stored under the PSModulePath environment variable (example output from my machine below).

PS> $Env:PSModulePath -split ";"
C:\Users\Rakhesh\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules
C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules
C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Azure\PowerShell\ServiceManagement

PS> $Env:PSModulePath -split ";"

C:\Users\Rakhesh\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules

C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules

C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Azure\PowerShell\ServiceManagement

So what one really needs to do is provide the module itself to Save-Help. You have many options here: (1) install the module on the computer (not what you want to do usually!) or (2) connect to a computer which has the module, save that module object in a variable, and pass that on to Save-Help (you can do an Invoke-Command, or a New-PSSession, or a New-CimSession to the remote machine, then issue the Get-Module -ListAvailable -Name ... cmdlet to get the module object and pass back to the computer you are on) (see the first example from the Save-Help help page for more on this).

In my case since the host machine (with Internet) and guest machine (which needs the updated help files) have no network connection between them I’ll have to resort to other means. Enter Export-CliXML and Import-CliXML. When you connect to a remote machine and store the module object in a variable, what’s happening behind-the-scenes is that the object is converted to a text representation in XML. This preserves all the properties of the object but not the methods, and once this XML is passed to the remote computer it is converted back to an object (without the methods of course). If you can remote to a machine all this happens behind the scenes, but you can also do this manually via the Export-CliXML and Import-CliXML cmdlets – convert all the module objects on the target computer to their XML representation, copy these XML files to the computer with Internet access, convert them back to modules and download help files, then copy these help files to the target computer so Update-Help can add.

Thus on the virtual machine I do something like this:

foreach ($module in $(Get-Module -ListAvailable)) {
  Export-Clixml -Path C:\Users\rakhesh\Downloads\$module -InputObject $module 
}

foreach ($module in $(Get-Module -ListAvailable)) {

Export-Clixml -Path C:\Users\rakhesh\Downloads\$module -InputObject $module

}

Copy them to the host, change to that directory, and run:

foreach ($module in $(Get-ChildItem)) {
  $module_imp = Import-Clixml -Path C:\Users\Rakhesh\Downloads\Modules\$module
  Save-Help -DestinationPath C:\Users\Rakhesh\Downloads\Saved -Module $module_imp 
}

foreach ($module in $(Get-ChildItem)) {

$module_imp = Import-Clixml -Path C:\Users\Rakhesh\Downloads\Modules\$module

Save-Help -DestinationPath C:\Users\Rakhesh\Downloads\Saved -Module $module_imp

}

Copy the downloaded files back to the virtual machine and do something like this:

update-help -SourcePath c:\Users\rakhesh.RAXNET\Downloads\Saved

1	update-help -SourcePath c:\Users\rakhesh.RAXNET\Downloads\Saved

That’s all!

PowerShell scripts to download a file and expand zip file

Posted: February 26th, 2015 | Category: PowerShell | §

It all began because I have a folder of Sysinternals tools and I thought now would be a good time to update it with the latest version.

But downloading a zip file and expanding to the folder is so old-fashioned surely? ;-) Why not use PowerShell to make it a one-click process.

Thus was born Download-File.ps1 which downloads a given link to a file and optionally passes it through down the pipeline. It’s a simple script, just a wrapper around the Invoke-WebRequest cmdlet. Then was born Expand-Zip.ps1 which takes a zip file – either as a file, or a stream of bytes down the pipeline (from Download-File.ps1 for instance) – and expands this into a folder (over-writing the contents by default, but can optionally not over-write).

Neither of these are a big deal but it’s been so long since I did some PowerShell coding that I felt I must mention them. Maybe it’s of use to someone else too!

Now I can do something like the following (put it in a script of its own of course) and it will download the latest version of Sysinternals and expand to the specified folder.

\path\to\Download-File.ps1 http://download.sysinternals.com/files/SysinternalsSuite.zip -PassThru | \path\to\Expand-Zip.ps1 -ExpandTo \absolute\path\to\Sysinternals

1	\path\to\Download-File.ps1 http://download.sysinternals.com/files/SysinternalsSuite.zip -PassThru \| \path\to\Expand-Zip.ps1 -ExpandTo \absolute\path\to\Sysinternals

I added some progress bars too to show what’s happening. Both scripts can be found in my GitHub repo: Download-File.ps1 and Expand-Zip.ps1.

PowerShell as wget/ curl

Posted: February 26th, 2015 | Tags: curl, download, wget | Category: PowerShell | §

I needed to download OneGet for the previous post. I had the URL, but rather than open a browser as I would usually do I used PowerShell to download the file:

PS> Invoke-WebRequest http://oneget.org/oneget.zip -OutFile oneget.zip

1	PS> Invoke-WebRequest http://oneget.org/oneget.zip -OutFile oneget.zip

Nifty, eh! If you omit the -OutFile you get the headers and such:

PS> Invoke-WebRequest http://oneget.org/oneget.zip


StatusCode        : 200
StatusDescription : OK
Content           : {80, 75, 3, 4...}
RawContent        : HTTP/1.1 200 OK
                    Content-MD5: /bez4IkFAORz1WWm80bHnw==
                    x-ms-request-id: d6df72e2-0001-0017-0896-11458a000000
                    x-ms-version: 2009-09-19
                    x-ms-lease-status: unlocked
                    x-ms-blob-type: BlockBlob
                    Content...
Headers           : {[Content-MD5, /bez4IkFAORz1WWm80bHnw==], [x-ms-request-id, d6df72e2-0001-0017-0896-11458a000000],
                    [x-ms-version, 2009-09-19], [x-ms-lease-status, unlocked]...}
RawContentLength  : 906946



PS> Invoke-WebRequest http://oneget.org/oneget.zip | select -ExpandProperty Headers

Key                                                         Value
---                                                         -----
Content-MD5                                                 /bez4IkFAORz1WWm80bHnw==
x-ms-request-id                                             d6dfadf7-0001-0017-3e96-11458a000000
x-ms-version                                                2009-09-19
x-ms-lease-status                                           unlocked
x-ms-blob-type                                              BlockBlob
Content-Length                                              906946
Content-Type                                                application/octet-stream
Date                                                        Wed, 25 Feb 2015 21:07:42 GMT
ETag                                                        0x8D1CE392F8BDAF4
Last-Modified                                               Fri, 14 Nov 2014 15:45:44 GMT
Server                                                      Windows-Azure-Blob/1.0 Microsoft-HTTPAPI/2.0

PS> Invoke-WebRequest http://oneget.org/oneget.zip

StatusCode : 200

StatusDescription : OK

Content : {80, 75, 3, 4...}

RawContent : HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Content-MD5: /bez4IkFAORz1WWm80bHnw==

x-ms-request-id: d6df72e2-0001-0017-0896-11458a000000

x-ms-version: 2009-09-19

x-ms-lease-status: unlocked

x-ms-blob-type: BlockBlob

Content...

Headers : {[Content-MD5, /bez4IkFAORz1WWm80bHnw==], [x-ms-request-id, d6df72e2-0001-0017-0896-11458a000000],

[x-ms-version, 2009-09-19], [x-ms-lease-status, unlocked]...}

RawContentLength : 906946

PS> Invoke-WebRequest http://oneget.org/oneget.zip | select -ExpandProperty Headers

Key Value

--- -----

Content-MD5 /bez4IkFAORz1WWm80bHnw==

x-ms-request-id d6dfadf7-0001-0017-3e96-11458a000000

x-ms-version 2009-09-19

x-ms-lease-status unlocked

x-ms-blob-type BlockBlob

Content-Length 906946

Content-Type application/octet-stream

Date Wed, 25 Feb 2015 21:07:42 GMT

ETag 0x8D1CE392F8BDAF4

Last-Modified Fri, 14 Nov 2014 15:45:44 GMT

Server Windows-Azure-Blob/1.0 Microsoft-HTTPAPI/2.0

Lastly, just for kicks, to get all elements of a certain tag from a website:

PS> (Invoke-WebRequest http://rakhesh.com).AllElements | ?{ $_.tagname -eq "h2" } | ft outerText

outerText
---------
PowerShell as wget/ curl
Notes of PowerShell DSC course, OneGet & Chocolatey
Desired State Configuration (DSC)
OneGet and friends
Notes on using Git from behind a firewall, tunneling SSH through a proxy, Git credential helpers, and so on …
Batch file to add BUILTIN\Administrators group to a folder of roaming profiles
To view a file or folder owner use dir /q
Beware of takeown and recursively operating
New features in BlackBerry OS 10.3.1 (picture heavy)
AD Domain Password policies
Using Git and Dropbox (along with GitHub but working tree in Dropbox)
Setting it up
Changing things
Changing things (part 2)
Wrapping up
Roaming profile permissions and versions
How to move/ separate the .git folder out of your working tree
Using Git and Dropbox (along with GitHub)
Thoughts on BBC One’s “The Missing”
Setting up a test lab with Azure (part 1)
Step 1: Create an affinity group
Step 2: Set up the network
Step 3: Create a storage account
Step 4: Create a VM
Step 5: Set up self-signed certificate for PowerShell remoting
Step 6: Create a domain and promote this machine to DC
Replicate with repadmin
Authorizing a DHCP server in a Child Domain requires Enterprise Admin rights (or a delegation)
Windows 10 Cortana is not available if the region is not US
Windows 10 activation
Notes on Dynamic DNS updates, DNS Scavenging, etc.
Scavenging
Quickly rename a bunch of files via PowerShell

PS> (Invoke-WebRequest http://rakhesh.com).AllElements | ?{ $_.tagname -eq "h2" } | ft outerText

outerText

---------

PowerShell as wget/ curl

Notes of PowerShell DSC course, OneGet & Chocolatey

Desired State Configuration (DSC)

OneGet and friends

Notes on using Git from behind a firewall, tunneling SSH through a proxy, Git credential helpers, and so on …

Batch file to add BUILTIN\Administrators group to a folder of roaming profiles

To view a file or folder owner use dir /q

Beware of takeown and recursively operating

New features in BlackBerry OS 10.3.1 (picture heavy)

AD Domain Password policies

Using Git and Dropbox (along with GitHub but working tree in Dropbox)

Setting it up

Changing things

Changing things (part 2)

Wrapping up

Roaming profile permissions and versions

How to move/ separate the .git folder out of your working tree

Using Git and Dropbox (along with GitHub)

Thoughts on BBC One’s “The Missing”

Setting up a test lab with Azure (part 1)

Step 1: Create an affinity group

Step 2: Set up the network

Step 3: Create a storage account

Step 4: Create a VM

Step 5: Set up self-signed certificate for PowerShell remoting

Step 6: Create a domain and promote this machine to DC

Replicate with repadmin

Authorizing a DHCP server in a Child Domain requires Enterprise Admin rights (or a delegation)

Windows 10 Cortana is not available if the region is not US

Windows 10 activation

Notes on Dynamic DNS updates, DNS Scavenging, etc.

Scavenging

Quickly rename a bunch of files via PowerShell

Got to love it when you can do such cool things with Windows/ PowerShell so easily! A few years ago I could have barely imagined such a thing would be possible on Windows.

Update: While I am at it, here’s how you can quickly download a bunch of files from a website. In this case I want to download all mp3 files from a music website (for example purposes!). Through trial and error I know the links have the text “download” in them, so I can filter for such links and then download each of these to an appropriate file:

(Invoke-WebRequest http://downloadming.nu/badlapur-2015-mp3-songs).Links | ?{ $_.outerText -eq "download" } | select href | %{ Invoke-WebRequest $_.href -OutFile $(Split-Path -Leaf $_.href) }

1	(Invoke-WebRequest http://downloadming.nu/badlapur-2015-mp3-songs).Links \| ?{ $_.outerText -eq "download" } \| select href \| %{ Invoke-WebRequest $_.href -OutFile $(Split-Path -Leaf $_.href) }

Or a variant:

# I expand the "href" hashtable beforehand in this case
(Invoke-WebRequest http://downloadming.nu/badlapur-2015-mp3-songs).Links | ?{ $_.outerText -eq "download" } | select -ExpandProperty href | %{ Invoke-WebRequest $_ -OutFile $(Split-Path -Leaf $_) }

1 2	# I expand the "href" hashtable beforehand in this case (Invoke-WebRequest http://downloadming.nu/badlapur-2015-mp3-songs).Links \| ?{ $_.outerText -eq "download" } \| select -ExpandProperty href \| %{ Invoke-WebRequest $_ -OutFile $(Split-Path -Leaf $_) }

If you use a different site you’ll have to modify the filters accordingly, but it’s pretty straight-forward …

Quickly rename a bunch of files via PowerShell

Posted: January 30th, 2015 | Category: PowerShell | §

Each time I do PowerShell now, it saddens me. I haven’t used it much for the past year I am slowly forgetting even the basic stuff. I really must do some PowerShell coding project soon just to amp up my skills.

Anyhoo, I needed to rename a bunch of files quickly today. Used the following to rename them:

Get-ChildItem | %{ $name = $_.name; if ($name -match "^(.*) \(digital.*\)\.cbz$") { $newname = $matches[1]; Rename-Item -Path $name -NewName "$newname.cbz" } }

1	Get-ChildItem \| %{ $name = $_.name; if ($name -match "^(.) $digital.$\.cbz$") { $newname = $matches[1]; Rename-Item -Path $name -NewName "$newname.cbz" } }

The files were of the format “The Title (digital) Extra Stuff.cbz“. I wanted to rename it such that the new file name is only the underlined parts. Above code does that to a directory full of such files.

How to find the version of PowerShell

Posted: December 5th, 2014 | Category: PowerShell | §

Two ways:

PS> $PSVersionTable

Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      5.0.9879.0
WSManStackVersion              3.0
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1
CLRVersion                     4.0.30319.0
BuildVersion                   6.4.9879.0
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.2


PS> Get-Host


Name             : ConsoleHost
Version          : 5.0.9879.0
InstanceId       : 921cb62e-6fa2-4b7a-9821-3e28b90006c9
UI               : System.Management.Automation.Internal.Host.InternalHostUserInterface
CurrentCulture   : en-US
CurrentUICulture : en-US
PrivateData      : Microsoft.PowerShell.ConsoleHost+ConsoleColorProxy
IsRunspacePushed : False
Runspace         : System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.LocalRunspace

PS> $PSVersionTable

Name Value

---- -----

PSVersion 5.0.9879.0

WSManStackVersion 3.0

SerializationVersion 1.1.0.1

CLRVersion 4.0.30319.0

BuildVersion 6.4.9879.0

PSCompatibleVersions {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}

PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.2

PS> Get-Host

Name : ConsoleHost

Version : 5.0.9879.0

InstanceId : 921cb62e-6fa2-4b7a-9821-3e28b90006c9

UI : System.Management.Automation.Internal.Host.InternalHostUserInterface

CurrentCulture : en-US

CurrentUICulture : en-US

PrivateData : Microsoft.PowerShell.ConsoleHost+ConsoleColorProxy

IsRunspacePushed : False

Runspace : System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.LocalRunspace

And if you want to check whether PowerShell is installed or not, check the Registry.

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How to find the version of PowerShell