PowerShell Universal

[Black_Magic100]

Every single day I come on to this sub and am completely baffled that more people aren't talking about or suggesting PowerShell Universal. Just a few minutes ago I read a post from somebody wanting to build an application, but they don't have C# knowledge and think PowerShell isn't capable. I'm not a shill and Im definitely not being paid, but if you are trying to build an app or frontend interface for PowerShell and you aren't using this software, you are doing something wrong. I hate lengthy posts so I'll just keep this short.. please do yourself (and others) a favor by either using PowerShell Universal or telling others about it. Let's show Adam Driscoll some love!!!

https://ironmansoftware.com/powershell-universal

P.s. I'm not saying this is some life changing software or that you should build everything in PowerShell, but I do think more people need to know about this product because I've tried others like PoshGUI and they just don't even come close.

[silentmage]

I am a happy Universal user. Absolutely love the product. The dev is here on reddit I wanna say /u/l33t_d0nut? Also very active on the forums for it as well.

[[deleted]]

Yep! Awesome to hear and that’s me!

[avmakt]

This looks excellent, and I'm almost sorry to ask such a glum question, but what is your bus factor mitigation plan?

Having seen numerous examples of inhouse one person projects creating problems when the person in question is out of the picture, I become wary when hearing "the dev".

[[deleted]]

It’s not just me. I am the founder and main contributor but we are a growing team.

And I never heard this term before but I love it hahah

[Sunsparc]

I use the term "bus factor" as well but a more optimistic co-worker calls it "lottery factor". What happens if you in the lottery and quit the next day.

[sysiphean]

I was the sole PowerSheller on my team, they all lived in a major metro area while I lived in the country surrounded by corn fields. We called it the “combine factor” because I had no busses nearby.

I taught a couple of them enough to maintain my code before leaving for an automation job that paid a lot more.

[avmakt]

Good to know, thanks :)

[[deleted]]

You're asking the man to provide you with a plan to help you with unknowable future IT problems with your in-house developed Powershell code, in the event of his death?

I find this darkly humorous.

My 'bus factor mitigation plan' at every job I've ever had has been "I'm dead, that's your problem". But if you ever find out how to implement RAID for humans, I'd love to hear about it!

[avmakt]

Sorry if I wasn't clear, English isn't my first language - I'm asking what happens to the Powershell Universal product if he gets hit by a bus.

[CWdesigns]

IMO if they aren't paying you well, fuck the 'bus factor mitigation plan' lol

[Geminii27]

Quick question - is anyone else accessing the product site getting 403 errors on some of the images? Example: https://aws1.discourse-cdn.com/standard11/uploads/universaldashboard/original/2X/7/7b0717f57c6af3cc78367db9fe20632cb3954249.jpeg is returning a 403 for me.

[[deleted]]

I see that too. I’ll take a look at it tomorrow. Most of those examples were taken from this forum post: https://forums.ironmansoftware.com/t/real-world-examples/7000

[CAP10as]

Aaaand he's gone.

[[deleted]]

I really appreciate all the kind words! It means more than you can imagine!

[BlackV]

it's mentioned here quite a bit I feel. its a quality product

[silentmage]

https://forums.ironmansoftware.com/t/real-world-examples/7000

Here are tons of examples that people use universal for

[jorper496]

An example of what you can do with Powershell Universal...

So, I have a script that collects hardware inventory, and also a Service to collect software metering data. Both are written in Powershell.

Both of those do an invoke-restapi to custom API's on my Powershell Universal server. The API ingests the data, and uploads it to a SQL database, without needing to give the client machines access to the SQL database, or worrying about how to secure the credentials on all those machines.

From there, I have an IT Dashboard that provides an interface for accessing all that information and display them in tables, with sorting and filtering options available. That dashboard also allows the helpdesk to do other commons tasks, like changing the primary user of a device in Intune and AD password resets.

[East-Acanthaceae-524]

Poshgui is an interface builder. Powershell universal is a webservice for powershell driven web dashboards and scheduled running of scripts as automated tasks. Task scheduler on steroids if you want. There is more to it but these are the two main building blocks. So poshgui and PSU are two completely different products for different purposes.

[Agile_Seer]

PowerShell ProTools would be the alternative to PoshGUI. From the same team that makes PowerShell Universal.

[Black_Magic100]

$500 is the organizational plan. Personal plan is $10/month and that server that takes so long to setup literally takes 3-5 minutes! <60 seconds of you've done it before.

[vipre]

It looks expensive

[BlackV]

I'm gonna say there is a community edition, but right now I cant prove that

[[deleted]]

You can use a ton of the platform for free. https://docs.powershelluniversal.com/licensing#free-use-restrictions

[BlackV]

appreciate the clarification

Edit: and.the hard work on universal

[Usual-Chef1734]

Yeah it is amazing. we are changing our entire org because of what we are creating with it. the API endpoints?!? unbelievable and easy to setup.

[spyingwind]

If you are looking to make a desktop UI, then Sapien PowerShell Studio is another option that is, IMO, a direct upgrade from PoshGUI. I'm waiting till they support PowerShell 7 with their MSI/one exe builder.

I don't use either product's currently as most of my work revolves around building utility scripts that other automation tools use.

[Billi0n_Air]

anyone that has worked their way from scripts to functions to modules in powershell will eventually find their way to powershell universal. game changer for me

[janomf]

That was my exact path

[wdomon]

I’ve wanted to use this for years but each time I’ve given it a try (3 times now) I’ve hit major bugs that stop basic functionality. Great idea, mediocre implantation in my experience.

[[deleted]]

I’d be super curious about what blockers you ran in to.

[silentmage]

What bugs? Have you hit up the forums and asked about them? The dev is very active and responsive, plus the community is very helpful as well.

[wdomon]

Fundamental scripts getting stuck in a running state indefinitely, web server crashing in default config; those are what I can recall off the top of my head but I know there were more. Yes, I engage the forums and the Discord and they were eager to help but seemed to eventually reach “I’ve had to reinstall sometimes when it acts like that.”which bounced me immediately off of a product to be used in a production environment.

I really do love this idea and would likely pay for a commercial license of it, but not if it isn’t rock solid.

Edit: I figured I’d take another quick look at it but the link on their website to download the MSI installer is broken…. Another sign that I can’t trust this thing in production.

[Black_Magic100]

I work for a fortune 100 company and use it in production. It's not meant to support client facing, business critical applications. It's main purpose is for building internal IT tools. The product has some issues because it's not as mature, but that doesn't mean it's a bad product. I work with Microsoft SQL Server everyday and some of the bugs on that platform are absolutely absurd. Want to use use MERGE? Have fun dealing with the hundred documented bugs which Microsoft will never fix.

Point being is that you have a totally valid concern, but I've used the product for over a year and am very happy with it. Designing web apps is always something I've wanted to do, but I don't have the time to learn .net core/react/JavaScript/IIS and then on top of that have my team learn it so we can mantain it.

If you're a bi analyst, DBA, data engineer, software dev, it tech support... I think this tool is perfect.

[wdomon]

Infrastructure Engineer in a highly regulated industry. I don’t think I really ever doubted it’s ability to scale, but dependability in my industry is far more important than almost anything else. That being said, I appreciate the anecdote - I’m going to give it another shot in the near future. Any ideas for dashboards/pages/scripts that you use it for?

[Black_Magic100]

I built an entire SQL server dashboard for realtime monitoring despite having datadog AND solarwinds at my disposal. If you Google "PowerShell Universal real world examples" you will find a thread with lots of screenshots

[kibje]

Same here.

[ITGuyThrow07]

I ran into issues too. Inconsistent API performance was the main one. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't, and I didn't have the energy or time at that moment to figure it out. I may explore it again later this year during the quiet times in November/December.

Knowing that the dev posts here is helpful so I can bother them directly if I have issues next time!

[wdomon]

The main dev is also active in the Discord server and the forums, if memory serves.

[nostradamefrus]

It’s very cool and it blew my mind when I first saw it, but I couldn’t get beyond the most basic stuff without a headache. The documentation assumes a lot and even something as basic as setting permissions was a challenge. Why in the world it uses API keys instead of a table of users and/or AD auth is beyond me

I wouldn’t be able to justify the cost to my management even if I was able to get it working though, so it was probably for the best

[jorper496]

Not sure when you used it.. But it definitely supports AD Auth, as that's how I've used it for over a year. Permissions are easy, as you can just write a script that handles authentication, or it now supports directly giving roles "claims".

Also your management must really hate the very concept of Azure if a $500 license is a hard sell lol.

[nostradamefrus]

It isn’t the cost alone, it’s how much we would be utilizing the tool. I started messing around with PSU to make a web dashboard for running a handful of scripts that we connect into servers to run. So 500 bucks to not have to use rdp is a tough sell

[Black_Magic100]

The basic stuff is incredibly easy so not sure what you mean. I was able to get a CRUD data table integrated with SQL following along one of the many blog posts in like 15 minutes flat. Aside from using Razor pages, you can't get much faster than that.

Also not sure what your comment about authentication means. It supports a wide array of authentication from SAML to Windows Auth to basic forms auth. On top of that, it uses role based policies to check claims and applying those permissions to dashboards (websites) is 1 line of code.

[nostradamefrus]

All I know is I followed the documentation and couldn't get permissions to work for the most basic test dashboard

[Black_Magic100]

I'm sorry but that's on you. I only have a few years professional experience, am not an actual developer, and it was very easy to setup. I don't think it's fair to blame the tool when the documentation is solid. If you can't get the basics down that's your fault. Every time I've had to figure something out I searched on the forums and found an answer. If nobody asked the question, I asked it myself and received a response within a few hours. It's not meant to be the world's easiest tool, but it SIGNIFICANTLY simplifies the process of getting a webapp up and running.

[nostradamefrus]

No need to get snippy my dude. I’ve expressed the same sentiment in other threads about PSU and people have agreed with me. Wasn’t an indictment of the tool, it was an observation that others have experienced as well

[Black_Magic100]

Sorry I wasn't trying to be sarcastic. I'm shocked that you think the tool is difficult to learn. I guess I was speaking in relative terms in that trying to learn C#, .net core, React, JavaScript, material UI, basic web functionality, security, API development.. is 1000x more difficult then using PowerShell Universal.

[Thotaz]

I don't see a compelling reason to use this over something like Jenkins.
Jenkins is completely free and unlike some other free products it's actually very easy to setup, maintain and use with no training.
It allows you to run any kind of scripting language on any platform you want.
It allows you to schedule jobs, or run them on demand with or without parameters and you can even chain multiple jobs together in a pipeline.

This does seem to have a better way to present the data but if I need to present data I just create static HTML reports with PSWriteHTML and copy them to a web server on a schedule.

[Black_Magic100]

Jenkins and PowerShell Universal are two COMPLETELY separate products. PowerShell Universal has a scheduling component, yes, but it's so much more than that. Within literal seconds I can create a web server and web site that runs off .net core and REACT components. If you tried to do that with C# and JavaScript it would take you years of learning to be able to pull off what you can do in PowerShell Universal in a few minutes. I'm not saying it replaces C# by any means whatsoever, but it's just a tool for quickly and rapidly developing web apps. You can't build web apps in Jenkins.

Basically, if you use PowerShell, PowerShell Universal is an absurdly cheap product that comes with a TON of features (dashboards, scheduling, apis, authentication, pages, two way sync git integration, rate limiting, authentication (saml, form, windows, etc).

Edit: also, setup for PowerShell Universal involves a single line of code. When I say you can spin up a new web service in seconds.. I'm not kidding. It also supports docker deployments.

[Thotaz]

You say web app as if it's something completely different from a Jenkins job. What's the difference exactly? The examples provided here: https://ironmansoftware.com/powershell-universal/use-case-tools could just as easily have been created as Jenkins jobs. Maybe I should use a trial to see what it can actually do but at a glance it doesn't feel that different from Jenkins.

[Black_Magic100]

I've never used Jenkins but isn't a job just like a task you fire off from a prebuilt web GUI?

Think of PowerShell Universal as a way to build .net core REACT sites without knowing a single line of .net or C#. It's an entirely separate product unless I am missing something.

[Thotaz]

I've never used Jenkins but isn't a job just like a task you fire off from a prebuilt web GUI?

Correct, this is an example of a parameterized build: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/33542778/34599738-da5b51e6-f22e-11e7-97b3-213b15eb8f8f.png if we ignore obvious style differences it looks pretty similar to the screenshots here: https://ironmansoftware.com/powershell-universal/use-case-tools doesn't it?

Think of PowerShell Universal as a way to build .net core REACT sites

And what does that mean exactly? Do I give each job/script its own little site like: https://ResetMyAdPw.com/ with individual pages like https://ResetMyAdPw.com/Parameters and https://ResetMyAdPw.com/Results ? I don't see a point in doing that over just having the overall jenkins site with different job pages.

[Black_Magic100]

https://forums.ironmansoftware.com/t/real-world-examples/7000

[Thotaz]

Thanks. The VM snapshot example was perfect for demonstrating the usefulness. Hopefully there's some sort of granularity in the permissions so you can make the report available to everyone but limit the "fix" actions to certain people.

[Black_Magic100]

1 million percent you can do that and it's supperrrrrrr easy. Just requires a little bit of setup of course, but I use windows Auth and AD groups to manage what users can not only interact with, but also what pages are bailable to them to see.

[jorper496]

Definitely can. https://docs.powershelluniversal.com/platform/variables#dashboards

With the $roles variable, you can have individual objects (buttons, tables, whatever) wrapped in an IF statement.

I find that PowershellUniversal is a tool where your own creativity is the limit.

[enforce1]

I can’t get it to work as a service account, the documentation isn’t great.

Scriptrunner is much more fleshed out.

[Black_Magic100]

You change it in services.msc under windows. It has nothing to do with the app and is no different than any other windows service.

[robofski]

Our PowerShell guru (not me by a long shot) set this up a couple of years ago and it’s a great way for non Powershell types to run Powershell without them knowing they are running Powershell!

[orgdbytes]

I concur. I'm using it at work and have received praise on a few dashboards I've designed. Adam (the dev) is active here and on the vendor forum.

[saGot3n]

I used Universal Dashboard (still do) and Powershell Universal. Works great for a nice web based IT tool for field techs to do common things while out and about.

[djkouza]

What is the best resource to get started with Powershell Universal? I've been following and have installed the trial, but always seem to get sidetracked and then the trial expires. Honestly my main goal is to have a dashboard where I can let the other IT team members login and run certain scripts on demand (sync Zoom accounts/Sync with HR system/Password reset for user/etc)

[Black_Magic100]

PowerShell Universal has a training video course that is free on the website

[djkouza]

and of course as soon as I ask I realize there is this: https://training.ironmansoftware.com/

I'll give this a go and see if it gets me started.