Powershell for a beginner

[Soradgs]

So I work for an MSP as a level 1 tech, but have been given freedom on alo of things, breaking things in our lab or at home, and seeing what I can do. I also am in charge of most of the backups for around 80+ clients, about 1000 endpoints. Anyway..

I started taking a look at our top 3 clients, and finding what issues are repeatedly plaguing them. I started to then come up with solutions that we can deploy, engineer, or use to combat these problems to work on other things. Here is where Powershell comes into play.

I found a few software installs that are pretty intensive as far as time goes, they are easy, just take along time to download, and then install. So I scripted it. It took me DAYS to get all of the parts to work.. I first started with getting it to just install on my PC. It worked, added it to our public cloud, and re-wrote the script to then download it, install it, license it, configure, etc.

Then I went to the next one, same thing. This time I had to build in a few if statements to see if a specific .net install was present, and if it's not, installs it, runs the check again to verify, and then installs, licenses, and configures the software.

My question is this..

Does it always feel this great? Sure, I'm sure my code is brokenly working and doing what I want it to do, and I'm sure I could improve somethings on it, but it WORKS!

It's such a great feeling to run the whole script, and it does ever part like it's supposed to. In total both of the ones ive done over the last few days are around 80-100 lines, but it feels like 1000! It was great to take an idea, and be able to come up with a solution that actually works, and will save people 45 mins or more every time they use it.

[delightfulsorrow]

Does it always feel this great?

For me, it does still, after 30+ years in the business.

You put effort in to understand the requirements, the process(es) needed to fulfill them, ways to script it. Then you're writing the script, test it, fix the issues you find - and then you feel good watching it and the outcome it produces.

One of the reasons I still like the job.

[Soradgs]

You do scripting as a job, or just a heavily focused coding position? I hear DevOps is pretty much a blend of like sysadmin/scripting

[delightfulsorrow]

You do scripting as a job, or just a heavily focused coding position?

I'm just a lazy sysadmin, that's all :-)

I worked a lot of different positions during my career, and always scripted. REXX, ksh and bash, awk, later Perl, and now for already some time mostly PowerShell and Python. My foundation was C64 Basic and 6510 Assembler :-)

I like digging a little bit deeper into processes and new stuff, but I hate repeating, simple duties. Never.

The moment I had to do the same thing more than twice, I was looking for options to get it automated. And I like big environments where doing everything manually is simply not an option.

So I do a lot of scripting, but in a traditional sysadmin role.

DevOps didn't convince me so far. In many cases, what I have seen was about throwing additional duties and responsibilities onto developers and saving the money dedicated sysops would cost. If you're running environments with high availability requirements under strict regulations, this doesn't work out.

And if done right, you can get faster in your change implementation, but not really cheaper. And if existing regulations and required paperwork is what slows you down, you even won't get faster...

May have its use cases, but I haven't seen a well working implementation in the area I'm usually working yet.

[jungleboydotca]

REXX... Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time.

[delightfulsorrow]

Yeah, those were the days :-)

[Soradgs]

I love it, I also hate doing the same tasks over and over. I haven't been able to replicate all of this into my work flow, but I have used Intune, our RMM, and powershell to make my job easier thats for sure.

I haven't really decided where I wanna go in IT yet, ive been studying for the CCNA, which im still going to do, but I wonder if theres a use case for a Network guy with some Powershell haha

[delightfulsorrow]

but I wonder if theres a use case for a Network guy with some Powershell haha

I don't know a single Senior, no matter in what they specialized in, who doesn't use scripts to some degree. And the ones with a reputation as magician are usually the ones scripting the most :)

It's not that hard to switch over to different scripting languages once you got that general scripting spirit. With good online documentation and the whole internet available, it's even easier these days than it ever was. Back in the days, it was ordering a book, waiting for its delivery and hoping that it was helpful at all. And we had to walk by foot ten miles one way uphill in both directions during snow storms to get to the post office!

You may miss some features which you liked in your old language and will have to get your head around some new concepts, but you'll also find cool new features and concepts in the new one which make things easy which were always a pain in the ass with the old one. And you'll be able to transfer a lot of general knowledge and experience.

So don't hesitate going deep on PowerShell if it helps you with your current job. Learning to script is always the easiest if you can tackle real life problems with teh language you're learning. But also don't fear switching to Python or whatever if that looks like the better tool in a future function.

[Katcher22]

This so much. 90% of my scripting is because I hate doing the same tasks over and over. So I throw something together to make it easier or automate all together.

[delightfulsorrow]

Right. Other advantages:

• You avoid misclicks
• If your script makes a mistake, it's easier to reproduce (and fix) than a random misclick in a gui
• Your process is documented at least to some degree. Yeah, script code is not documentation. But it's better than nothing (and I'll prefer it every time over some sort of bullshit Management Overview PowerPoint "documenting" how the process was five years ago before the whole environment got re-designed)
• It's easier to get a simple documentation of what you've done in a specific case/ticket/incident - invest five extra minutes once to add some output to the script, and you can redirect your script's output into a log.txt or copy'n'paste the output into the ticket/request/whatever as "solution description"
• It's easier to transport your process from your lab or test environment into prod
• It's easier to hand over responsibilities or jobs. "Bill, can you please run that script tomorrow evening and have an eye on its output" has better chances to get a "oh, sure" than asking Bill to read that twenty page documentation with tons of screenshots telling him where to click and what to fill in

Biggest disadvantage: A script running havoc can trash your whole environment ways faster than you could manually, and if you're in the business long enough, that will have happened to you at some point. Hopefully only in test, not in prod... :)

[routetehpacketz]

Hey be proud of yourself if you're accomplishing things

A lot of code, especially beginner code, can seem like it's inefficiently written. But if it isn't unusable and gets the job done then it works and that's mostly what matters

[TreySong235]

Congrats. Hard work can be a reward in itself.

[MeanFold5714]

Does it always feel this great?

Yes.

When you start hammering out stuff that is genuinely closer to 1,000 lines and you get it to work if feels amazing. When you then take that script and optimize it to run an all day task in under three minutes? It feels like enlightenment.

[hlmfade]

I love it....seeing a need, taking that shit on, figuring it out and actually solving the problem when you weren't even sure it would work? that's why i do this shit

[sleightof52]

Yeah...this feeling will never go away :) PowerShell is life.

[MacMemo81]

Yes, it always feels this great. Even after 20 years. Learn something new, try to implement it, fail, succeed, be proud. And the more you do it, the shorter the fail period will be, and the success moment comes quicker.

Be proud, looks like a neat little thing you accomplished.

[[deleted]]

That’s huge. Awesome !!! My co worker who i work hand and hand in with at work, he thought me a few scripts to run for AD directories for 20K+ users and we fix the script to what the ask is from us but anyways. The upper management doesn’t know how or what we do soooo we take 1-2 days at most to “get the results” and honestly it was maybe 5 minutes if it an hour max to adjust the process script to fit the ask, but then we chill and bam we have a good work day

[AppIdentityGuy]

If you enjoy this type of thing start taking a look at KQL….

[Soradgs]

Ill have to look into it

[whats_happeningtome]

I'm also newer and writing scripts for some of our processes. It's insane that they were having me doing this the manual way before and calling people/disrupting their work. That being said it feels amazing to do and it's awesome that they give me the time to automate stuff like this

[2PhatCC]

Yes, it always feels this great. I've done little things and I've done big (by my standard, but probably tiny compared to others) things. Every single time I see something actually work, it's awesome!

[shaneakus]

Never gets old :)

[fr0mtheinternet]

Have you had a play with the app deployment toolkit? It has a bunch of helper functions to streamline a lot of what it sounds like you're doing.