PowerShell in Depth: An administrator's guide

632 Pages·2013·17.46 MB·english

by  Don Jones

Covers PowerShell 3.0
An administrator’s guide
Don Jones
Richard Siddaway
Jeffery Hicks
M A N N I N G
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PowerShell in Depth
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PowerShell in Depth
AN ADMINISTRATOR’S GUIDE
DON JONES
RICHARD SIDDAWAY
JEFFERY HICKS
MANNING
SHELTER ISLAND
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ISBN: 9781617290558
Printed in the United States of America
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brief contents
PART 1 POWERSHELL FUNDAMENTALS . .....................................1
1 ■ Introduction 3
2 ■ PowerShell hosts 7
3 ■ Using the PowerShell help system 17
4 ■ The basics of PowerShell syntax 29
5 ■ Working with PSSnapins and modules 39
6 ■ Operators 46
7 ■ Working with objects 60
8 ■ The PowerShell pipeline 93
9 ■ Formatting 111
PART 2 POWERSHELL MANAGEMENT......................................127
10 ■ PowerShell Remoting 129
11 ■ Background jobs and scheduling 160
12 ■ Working with credentials 174
13 ■ Regular expressions 184
14 ■ Working with HTML and XML data 196
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vi BRIEF CONTENTS
15 ■ PSDrives and PSProviders 210
16 ■ Variables, arrays, hash tables, and scriptblocks 224
17 ■ PowerShell security 244
18 ■ Advanced PowerShell syntax 257
PART 3 POWERSHELL SCRIPTING AND AUTOMATION...............275
19 ■ PowerShell’s scripting language 277
20 ■ Basic scripts and functions 291
21 ■ Creating objects for output 301
22 ■ Scope 317
23 ■ PowerShell workflows 332
24 ■ Advanced syntax for scripts and functions 359
25 ■ Script modules and manifest modules 379
26 ■ Custom formatting views 391
27 ■ Custom type extensions 403
28 ■ Data language and internationalization 417
29 ■ Writing help 429
30 ■ Error handling techniques 435
31 ■ Debugging tools and techniques 447
32 ■ Functions that work like cmdlets 466
33 ■ Tips and tricks for creating reports 485
PART 4 ADVANCED POWERSHELL...........................................495
34 ■ Working with the Component
Object Model (COM) 497
35 ■ Working with .NET Framework objects 505
36 ■ Accessing databases 517
37 ■ Proxy functions 525
38 ■ Building a GUI 538
39 ■ WMI and CIM 557
40 ■ Best practices 584
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contents
preface xxi
acknowledgments xxiii
about this book xxv
about the authors xxvii
about the cover illustration xxix
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 10
2.3 The PowerShell ISE 12
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viii CONTENTS
2.4 Command history buffer vs. PowerShell’s history 15
2.5 Transcripts 16
2.6 Summary 16
3 Using the PowerShell help system 17
3.1 The help commands 17
3.2 Where’s the help? 18
3.3 Using the help 20
3.4 “About” help files 23
3.5 Provider help 24
3.6 Interpreting command help 25
3.7 Common parameters 27
3.8 Summary 28
4 The basics of PowerShell syntax 29
4.1 Commands 30
Aliases: nicknames for commands 31 ■ Command name
tab completion 32
4.2 Parameters 32
Truncating parameter names 34 ■ Parameter name
tab completion 35
4.3 Typing trick: line continuation 35
4.4 Parenthetical commands and expressions 36
4.5 Script blocks 37
4.6 Summary 38
5 Working with PSSnapins and modules 39
5.1 There’s only one shell 39
5.2 PSSnapins vs. modules 40
5.3 Loading, autoloading, and profiles 41
5.4 Using extensions 41
Discovering extensions 41 ■ Loading extensions 43
Discovering extensions’ additions 43 ■ Managing extensions 44
5.5 Command name conflicts 44
5.6 Managing module autoloading 45
5.7 Summary 45
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CONTENTS ix
6 Operators 46
6.1 Logical and comparison operators 47
The –contains operator 48 ■ The -in and -notin operators 49
Boolean, or logical, operators 50 ■ Bitwise operators 51
6.2 Arithmetic operators 53
6.3 Other operators 55
String and array manipulation operators 55
Object type operators 56 ■ Format operator 57
Miscellaneous operators 58
6.4 Summary 59
7 Working with objects 60
7.1 Introduction to objects 61
7.2 Members: properties, methods, and events 63
7.3 Sorting objects 68
7.4 Selecting objects 69
Use 1: choosing properties 70 ■ Use 2: choosing a subset
of objects 71 ■ Use 3: making custom properties 73
Use 4: extracting and expanding properties 75
Use 5: choosing properties and a subset of objects 79
7.5 Filtering objects 79
Simplified syntax 79 ■ Full syntax 81
7.6 Grouping objects 81
7.7 Measuring objects 83
7.8 Enumerating objects 84
Full syntax 85 ■ Simplified syntax 85
7.9 Importing, exporting, and converting objects 86
7.10 Comparing objects 90
7.11 Summary 92
8 The PowerShell pipeline 93
8.1 How the pipeline works 93
The old way of piping 94 ■ The PowerShell way of piping 95
8.2 Parameter binding ByValue 96
8.3 Pipeline binding ByPropertyName 98
8.4 Troubleshooting parameter binding 104
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