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One-Liner Wednesday January 25, 2023

January 25, 2023 by ClaytonT Leave a Comment

Today’s one-liner is one that you or may not have to use a lot depending how your environment is setup and how you setup computers. Either way, its great to have it so you don’t have to go digging for it in the GUI. Ever had a time when you are trying to connect to a computer, and can’t? You make sure the computer is connected to the right wifi or that it is wired in, has the right IP address, and has internet… but nothing seems to work. Then you turn off your firewall and you can ping it… you know you can’t leave the firewall off all the time. What to do?

Set-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "File and Printer Sharing (Echo Request - ICMPv4-In)" -Enabled True

There is your answer. That simple one line of code enables pinging without turning off your whole firewall. You can do this in group policy or add it to your golden image for imaging computers.

Hope this helps and saves time you prepping computers!

Tagged With: Automation, Firewall, One Liner Wednesday, PowerShell

Module Monday January 16, 2023

January 16, 2023 by ClaytonT Leave a Comment

It’s Monday, and today we have another module by Doug Finke. Have you been using ChatGPT? Have you been enjoying it? Tired of always having to login and have a web browser open to use it? Why not have it right in your editor?

Welcome PowerShellAI! It is exactly what you think… it is OpenAI right in your VSCode and/or PowerShel Terminal. I’ve been testing this and really like it and can’t wait to see what else Doug does with it. One of the features I like is that you can set how risky of a response you OpenAI to use, where 0 is no to little risk, or use 0.9 where you can allow it to be a bit more flexible with it’s response.

Test it out and let me know what you think!

PowerShell Gallery:
PowerShellAI 0.1.0

GitHub:
PowerShellAI

Tagged With: Automation, Module Monday, PowerShell

Read-Only Friday January 13, 2023

January 13, 2023 by ClaytonT 2 Comments

Today’s Read-Only Friday is about retiring/upgrading servers. Don’t worry no changing code today, but with Server 2012R2 going end of support Oct 10, 2023, I want to make sure you are aware and prepared to do it. By no means is this the definitive guide to do it, but hope this helps you create or improve your process for upgrading servers. Right now, I’d put a reminder in your calendar so you don’t forget and that you have enough time to take action on those servers.

I know it will depend greatly on what is on the server, but first thing before doing anything is making sure you have a valid backup. I’m not just talking about that your backup server of choice says it backed it up successfully, but actually restoring the server/files needed from the backup to ensure it works. We are decommissioning it for a reason, but while going through the process we want to make sure we have a backup just in case.

Next, I’d go through the server and make sure all services/software are documented as well as any important files. Even if you have documentation, I’d double check that all of it is correct, and that someone didn’t go out of scope and install something on it without documenting it. The last thing you need is when you shutdown the server or setup the replacement server that a department can’t do their work because the product they need isn’t online anymore.

A PowerShell one liner I’d recommend is “Get-WindowsFeature | Where installed” for one computer or you could run “Get-WindowsFeature -computername serv01,serv02 | Where installed” then you could pipe it to CSV or Excel to make it easier for documentation.

Then to get all programs installed

$InstalledSoftware = Get-ChildItem "HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall"

foreach($obj in $InstalledSoftware){write-host $obj.GetValue('DisplayName') -NoNewline; write-host " - " -NoNewline; write-host $obj.GetValue('DisplayVersion')}

This can be exported as well for easier documention as well.

Now that we know we have good back ups, we know what services/applications installed, and we did a once over for any out scope configs, I would ask your team to look over what you have to make sure nothing was missed. The more you do these, the less time it will take, but it’s always good to have a second set of eyes on it.

Great, with it having a second set of eyes on it, we can now build the new machine. Depending on your virtualization platform(Hoping you a test environment, if not look at AutomatedLabs), I’d create a PowerShell script to build the server, or if you have templates already, I’d use PowerShell to make the copy then configure IP and any one off applications and servers, as well as any files that would need to be on it. Make sure all windows updates are done to ensure none of them will break it. Once you have confirmed everything is working on the newer server os, you can now deploy it to production(Make sure to turn off the old one if it will cause issues). Before deploying it to production, I’d send out communication to users in case for some reason there is an issue, they will let you know right away or if there is anything they have to do on their side.

At this point I’d put all of the documentation for the new server together if you haven’t already which should be easy, as most of it is right in scripts. Once the new server has been working for a safe amount of time as it will depend on the importance of server, you can remove the old server and test server from your host(s).

I could definitely go in more depth on this, and if you have any questions on checklists or what to actually keep for documentation, let me know and I’d be glad to help out.

And yes, I know this is a Read-Only Friday topic, but most of the hard work is on the planning/documenting side which you can do on Read-Only Friday.

Tagged With: Automation, Documentation, EOL, PowerShell, Read-Only Friday, Upgrading, Windows Server

Module Monday January 9, 2023

January 9, 2023 by ClaytonT Leave a Comment

It’s another Module Monday, but this time it isn’t really a module, but a script, that I think in the future could be turned into a module with even more functionality. I came across this script when I was looking for a quick way to download Window ISOs easily. I mean, who isn’t tired of going through all the clicks just to get a Window’s ISO from Microsoft?

This script finds Windows 11 ISOs and goes all the way back to Windows 7, but hoping you don’t need those for your own sanity. It does only cover home, business, and education, but that is becauase those are the most common.

It’s so nice just type in .\fido.ps1 win 11 -rel latest and this will download the latest version of Windows 11 for you? Why not put it in a scheduled task, so you don’t have to worry about downloading the latest version? Or if you or someone on your team needs a certain version you can just type in -win 10 -rel 21H1 and you know you have the right one? It also downloads very quickly as well.

Hope this saves you as much time as it has for me!

GitHub:
Fido

Tagged With: Automation, ISO, Module Monday, PowerShell, Windows

Read-Only Friday December 30, 2022

December 30, 2022 by ClaytonT Leave a Comment

Last Read-Only Friday of the year! I’m hoping you have enjoyed these, One Liner Wednesday, and Module Monday this year. I’ve enjoyed creating them and hearing how helpful they have been for you this year. Don’t worry they will be coming back for 2023. I may be making some changes a bit, but only for the better. Are there any topics, concepts, and/or modules you’d like me to cover in 2023? I’ve already started a list, but would love your input on things you’d like to see, as I know it would help others as well.

And for today’s Read-Only Friday?? If you don’t have any deadlines you need to get done by today… just relax. Look over some documentation, check on all your systems, ensure everything is working. If everything is… take screen shots and take photos where necessary so you have a last known working configuration of each. These can save you hours of time if someone bumps a wire by accident or if a vendor moves something they shouldn’t have, you can match up to these photos/screenshots/configs and see what has changed. Other than that, enjoy your day and have a great and safe weekend!

Tagged With: Automation, PowerShell, Reporting

One-Liner Wednesday December 28, 2022

December 28, 2022 by ClaytonT Leave a Comment

Today’s one-liner Wednesday will be great for system admins that need to see when and which updates were installed on a single server or multiple servers. It’s a quick and dirty way to do it, and I’m going to look around and see if there is a one with better formatting, but this gets the job done for now.

If you only need updates on one computer for the month of September 2022, this is all you need to do.

Export-InstalledPatchTOPDF -ComputerName localhost -month 9 -Year 2022

If you need multiple computers and want for a whole year, you would write this.

Export-InstalledPatchTOPDF -ComputerName localhost, server01, server02, server03 -Year 2022

And that’s it. As mentioned the output formatting could be a little better, but the functionality is great, and will reach out to him to see if he will be fixing it. If not, I’ll definitely be looking for another option.

PowerShell Gallery:
ExportInstalledPatchToPDFUpdated

Blog:
Prakash78

Tagged With: Automation, One Liner Wednesday, PowerShell, Reporting, Windows Server

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Clayton Tyger

Tech enthusiast dad who has lost 100lbs and now sometimes has crazy running/biking ideas. Read More…

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