PowerShell in Depth

746 Pages·2014·12.744 MB·English

by  Don Jones, Jeffery Hicks, Richard Siddaway

SECOND EDITION
Don Jones
Jeffery Hicks
Richard Siddaway
M A N N I N G
Praise for the First Edition

A thorough look at PowerShell from three of the best writers in the PowerShell community.
—Mike Shepard, Solutions Architect
Jack Henry & Associates
The most wonderful PowerShell administrative guide.
—Kais Ayari, PowerShell Expert, Microsoft
Another great PowerShell book for my desk!
—Thomas Lee, PowerShell Consultant, PS Partnership
Hicks, Jones, and Siddaway have come together to deliver the ultimate PowerShell resource.
—James Berkenbile, Principal Consultant
Berkenbile Consulting
I have many books on my shelves. This is one that will be on my desk!
—Trent Whiteley, Software Engineer, Fiserv
The authors know their audience and never lose sight of their readers. They use their knowledge
and understanding in very clever ways to help readers understand even complex subjects.
—Rolf Åberg, Platform Architect Active Directory, SEB
An end-all, be-all resource in the working man’s hands. I can finally give Google a rest.
—Eric Stoker, Network Administrator, Spokane Teacher’s Credit Union
Hands-down the best PowerShell book to date. The authors are some of the most respected in the
PowerShell community and this book illustrates why! These guys know this stuff inside and out.
—Adam Bell, Solution Architect, ZOE Systems Pty Ltd.
Priceless, practical guidance.
—Klaus Schulte, System administrator, www.kvwl.de

PowerShell in Depth
Second Edition
DON JONES
JEFFERY HICKS
RICHARD SIDDAWAY
MANNING
SHELTER ISLAND
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Cover designer: Marija Tudor
ISBN: 9781617292187
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 – MAL – 19 18 17 16 15 14
brief contents
PART 1 POWERSHELL FUNDAMENTALS .......................................1
1 ■ Introduction 3
2 ■ PowerShell hosts 7
3 ■ Using the PowerShell help system 19
4 ■ The basics of PowerShell syntax 33
5 ■ Working with PSSnapins and modules 44
6 ■ Operators 52
7 ■ Working with objects 69
8 ■ The PowerShell pipeline 106
9 ■ Formatting 125
PART 2 POWERSHELL MANAGEMENT......................................143
10 ■ PowerShell Remoting 145
11 ■ Background jobs and scheduling 181
12 ■ Working with credentials 196
13 ■ Regular expressions 206
14 ■ Working with HTML and XML data 222
v
vi BRIEF CONTENTS
15 ■ PSDrives and PSProviders 244
16 ■ Variables, arrays, hash tables, and script blocks 260
17 ■ PowerShell security 282
18 ■ Advanced PowerShell syntax 296
PART 3 POWERSHELL SCRIPTING AND AUTOMATION...............315
19 ■ PowerShell’s scripting language 317
20 ■ Basic scripts and functions 332
21 ■ Creating objects for ouput 344
22 ■ Scope 361
23 ■ PowerShell workflows 376
24 ■ Advanced syntax for scripts and functions 406
25 ■ Script modules and manifest modules 427
26 ■ Custom formatting views 439
27 ■ Custom type extensions 451
28 ■ Data language and internationalization 465
29 ■ Writing help 477
30 ■ Error handling techniques 484
31 ■ Debugging tools and techniques 496
32 ■ Functions that work like cmdlets 520
33 ■ Tips and tricks for creating reports 539
PART 4 ADVANCED POWERSHELL...........................................549
34 ■ Working with the Component
Object Model (COM) 551
35 ■ Working with .NET Framework objects 560
36 ■ Accessing databases 573
37 ■ Proxy functions 581
38 ■ Building a GUI 593
39 ■ WMI and CIM 613
40 ■ Working with the web 640
41 ■ Desired State Configuration 656
contents
preface xxi
acknowledgments xxiii
about this book xxv
PART 1 POWERSHELL FUNDAMENTALS............................1
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Who this book is for 3
1.2 What this book will teach you 4
1.3 What this book won’t teach you 4
1.4 Where we drew the line 5
1.5 Beyond PowerShell 5
1.6 Ready? 6
2 PowerShell hosts 7
2.1 32-bit vs. 64-bit, and administrator vs. not 8
2.2 The console 12
2.3 The PowerShell ISE 14
2.4 Command history buffer vs. PowerShell’s history 17
ix
x CONTENTS
2.5 Transcripts 17
2.6 Summary 18
3 Using the PowerShell help system 19
3.1 The help commands 19
3.2 Where’s the help? 20
3.3 Saving help 23
3.4 Using the help 24
3.5 “About” help files 27
3.6 Provider help 28
3.7 Interpreting command help 28
3.8 Common parameters 31
3.9 Summary 32
4 The basics of PowerShell syntax 33
4.1 Commands 34
Aliases: nicknames for commands 35 ■ Command name
tab completion 36
4.2 Parameters 36
Truncating parameter names 39 ■ Parameter name
tab completion 39
4.3 Typing trick: line continuation 40
4.4 Parenthetical commands and expressions 41
4.5 Script blocks 42
4.6 Summary 42
5 Working with PSSnapins and modules 44
5.1 There’s only one shell 44
5.2 PSSnapins vs. modules 45
5.3 Loading, autoloading, and profiles 46
5.4 Using extensions 46
Discovering extensions 46 ■ Loading extensions 48
Discovering extensions’ additions 48 ■ Managing extensions 49
5.5 Command name conflicts 50
5.6 Managing module autoloading 51
5.7 Summary 51
CONTENTS xi
6 Operators 52
6.1 Logical and comparison operators 53
The –contains operator 55 ■ The -in and -notin operators 56
Boolean, or logical, operators 57 ■ Bitwise operators 58
6.2 Arithmetic operators 61
6.3 Other operators 62
String and array manipulation operators 62
Object type operators 63 ■ Format operator 64
Miscellaneous operators 65
6.4 Math operators 67
6.5 Summary 68
7 Working with objects 69
7.1 Introduction to objects 70
7.2 Members: properties, methods, and events 71
7.3 Sorting objects 77
7.4 Selecting objects 78
Use 1: choosing properties 78 ■ Use 2: choosing a subset
of objects 80 ■ Use 3: making custom properties 82
Use 4: extracting and expanding properties 84
Use 5: choosing properties and a subset of objects 88
7.5 Filtering objects 88
Simplified syntax 89 ■ Full syntax 90
The Where method 90
7.6 Grouping objects 94
7.7 Measuring objects 96
7.8 Enumerating objects 97
Full syntax 97 ■ Simplified syntax 98
The ForEach method 99
7.9 Importing, exporting, and converting objects 100
7.10 Comparing objects 104
7.11 Summary 105
8 The PowerShell pipeline 106
8.1 How the pipeline works 106
The old way of piping 107 ■ The PowerShell way of piping 107
8.2 Parameter binding ByValue 108