Practical automation with PowerShell : effective scripting from the console to the cloud / Matthew Dowst.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dowst, Matthew, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Windows PowerShell (Computer program language).

Computer software--Development.

Computer software.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (362 pages)

Edition:

[First edition].

Place of Publication:

Shelter Island, New York : Manning Publications, [2023]

Summary:

Practical Automation in PowerShell reveals how you can use PowerShell to build automation solutions for a huge number of common admin and DevOps tasks. Author Matthew Dowst uses his decades of experience to lay out a real blueprint for setting up an enterprise scripting environment with PowerShell. The book goes beyond the basics to show you how to handle the unforeseen complexities that can keep automations from becoming reusable and resilient. From the console to the cloud, you'll learn how to manage your code, avoid common pitfalls, and create sharable automations that are adaptable to different use cases. Practical Automation with PowerShell: Effective scripting from the console to the cloud shows you how to build PowerShell automations for local and cloud systems. In it, you'll find tips for identifying automatable tasks, techniques for structuring and managing scripts, and lots of well-explained example code. You'll even learn how to adapt existing scripts to new use cases and empower non-technical users through easy-to-understand SharePoint frontends.

Contents:

Intro

inside front cover

Practical Automation with PowerShell

Copyright

dedication

brief contents

contents

front matter

preface

acknowledgments

about this book

Who should read this book?

How this book is organized: A roadmap

About the code

liveBook discussion forum

about the author

about the cover illustration

Part 1.

1 PowerShell automation

1.1 What you'll learn in this book

1.2 Practical automation

1.2.1 Automation goal

1.2.2 Triggers

1.2.3 Actions

1.2.4 Maintainability

1.3 The automation process

1.3.1 Building blocks

1.3.2 Phases

1.3.3 Combining building blocks and phases

1.4 Choosing the right tool for the job

1.4.1 Automation decision tree

1.4.2 No need to reinvent the wheel

1.4.3 Supplemental tools

1.5 What you need to get started today

Summary

2 Get started automating

2.1 Cleaning up old files (your first building blocks)

2.1.1 Your first function

2.1.2 Returning data from functions

2.1.3 Testing your functions

2.1.4 Problems to avoid when adding functions to scripts

2.1.5 Brevity versus efficiency

2.1.6 Careful what you automate

2.1.7 Putting it all together

2.2 The anatomy of PowerShell automation

2.2.1 When to add functions to a module

2.2.2 Creating a script module

2.2.3 Module creation tips

Part 2.

3 Scheduling automation scripts

3.1 Scheduled scripts

3.1.1 Know your dependencies and address them beforehand

3.1.2 Know where your script needs to execute

3.1.3 Know what context the script needs to execute under

3.2 Scheduling your scripts

3.2.1 Task Scheduler

3.2.2 Create scheduled tasks via PowerShell

3.2.3 Cron scheduler

3.2.4 Jenkins scheduler

3.3 Watcher scripts

3.3.1 Designing watcher scripts

3.3.2 Invoking action scripts.

3.3.3 Graceful terminations

3.3.4 Folder watcher

3.3.5 Action scripts

3.4 Running watchers

3.4.1 Testing watcher execution

3.4.2 Scheduling watchers

4 Handling sensitive data

4.1 Principles of automation security

4.1.1 Do not store sensitive information in scripts

4.1.2 Principle of least privilege

4.1.3 Consider the context

4.1.4 Create role-based service accounts

4.1.5 Use logging and alerting

4.1.6 Do not rely on security through obscurity

4.1.7 Secure your scripts

4.2 Credentials and secure strings in PowerShell

4.2.1 Secure strings

4.2.2 Credential objects

4.3 Storing credentials and secure strings in PowerShell

4.3.1 The SecretManagement module

4.3.2 Set up the SecretStore vault

4.3.3 Set up a KeePass vault

4.3.4 Choosing the right vault

4.3.5 Adding secrets to a vault

4.4 Using credentials and secure strings in your automations

4.4.1 SecretManagement module

4.4.2 Using Jenkins credentials

4.5 Know your risks

5 PowerShell remote execution

5.1 PowerShell remoting

5.1.1 Remote context

5.1.2 Remote protocols

5.1.3 Persistent sessions

5.2 Script considerations for remote execution

5.2.1 Remote execution scripts

5.2.2 Remote execution control scripts

5.3 PowerShell remoting over WSMan

5.3.1 Enable WSMan PowerShell remoting

5.3.2 Permissions for WSMan PowerShell remoting

5.3.3 Execute commands with WSMan PowerShell remoting

5.3.4 Connect to the desired version of PowerShell

5.4 PowerShell remoting over SSH

5.4.1 Enable SSH PowerShell remoting

5.4.2 Authenticating with PowerShell and SSH

5.4.3 SSH environment considerations

5.4.4 Execute commands with SSH PowerShell remoting

5.5 Hypervisor-based remoting

5.6 Agent-based remoting

5.7 Setting yourself up for success with PowerShell remoting.

Summary

6 Making adaptable automations

6.1 Event handling

6.1.1 Using try/catch blocks for event handling

6.1.2 Creating custom event handles

6.2 Building data-driven functions

6.2.1 Determining your data structure

6.2.2 Storing your data

6.2.3 Updating your data structure

6.2.4 Creating classes

6.2.5 Building the function

6.3 Controlling scripts with configuration data

6.3.1 Organizing your data

6.3.2 Using your configuration data

6.3.3 Storing your configuration data

6.3.4 Do not put cmdlets into your configuration data

7 Working with SQL

7.1 Setting your schema

7.1.1 Data types

7.2 Connecting to SQL

7.2.1 Permissions

7.3 Adding data to a table

7.3.1 String validation

7.3.2 Inserting data to a table

7.4 Getting data from a table

7.4.1 SQL where clause

7.5 Updating records

7.5.1 Passing pipeline data

7.6 Keeping data in sync

7.6.1 Getting server data

7.7 Setting a solid foundation

8 Cloud-based automation

8.1 Chapter resources

8.2 Setting up Azure Automation

8.2.1 Azure Automation

8.2.2 Log Analytics

8.2.3 Creating Azure resources

8.2.4 Authentication from Automation runbooks

8.2.5 Resource keys

8.3 Creating a hybrid runbook worker

8.3.1 PowerShell modules on hybrid runbook workers

8.4 Creating a PowerShell runbook

8.4.1 Automation assets

8.4.2 Runbook Editor

8.4.3 Runbook output

8.4.4 Interactive Cmdlets

8.5 Security considerations

9 Working outside of PowerShell

9.1 Using COM objects and .NET Framework

9.1.1 Importing Word objects

9.1.2 Creating a Word document

9.1.3 Writing to a Word document

9.1.4 Adding tables to a Word document

9.2 Building tables from a PowerShell object

9.2.1 Converting PowerShell objects to tables.

9.2.2 Converting PowerShell arrays to tables

9.3 Getting web data

9.3.1 API keys

9.4 Using external applications

9.4.1 Calling an external executable

9.4.2 Monitoring execution

9.4.3 Getting the output

9.4.4 Creating Start-Process wrapper function

9.5 Putting it all together

10 Automation coding best practices

10.1 Defining the full automation

10.1.1 Structuring your automation

10.2 Converting a manual task to an automated one

10.3 Updating structured data

10.4 Using external tools

10.4.1 Finding installed applications

10.4.2 Call operators

10.5 Defining parameters

10.6 Making resumable automations

10.6.1 Determining code logic and functions

10.7 Waiting for automations

10.8 Think of the next person

10.8.1 Do not overcomplicate it

10.8.2 Comment, comment, comment

10.8.3 Include help and examples on all scripts and functions

10.8.4 Have a backup plan

10.9 Do not forget about the presentation

Part 3.

11 End-user scripts and forms

11.1 Script frontends

11.1.1 SharePoint trial tenant

11.2 Creating a request form

11.2.1 Gathering data

11.2.2 Creating a SharePoint form

11.3 Processing requests

11.3.1 Permissions

11.3.2 Monitoring for new requests

11.3.3 Processing the request

11.4 Running PowerShell script on end-user devices

11.4.1 Custom Git install

11.4.2 Running as system versus the user

11.4.3 Using Active Setup with PowerShell

12 Sharing scripts among a team

12.1 Sharing a script

12.1.1 Creating a gist

12.1.2 Editing a gist

12.1.3 Sharing a gist

12.1.4 Executing a gist

12.2 Creating a shared module

12.2.1 Uploading the module to a GitHub repository

12.2.2 Giving access to the shared module

12.2.3 Installing the shared module

12.3 Updating a shared module.

12.3.1 Make the module self-update

12.3.2 Creating a pull request

12.3.3 Testing the self-update

13 Testing your scripts

13.1 Introduction to Pester

13.2 Unit testing

13.2.1 BeforeAll

13.2.2 Creating tests

13.2.3 Mocks

13.3 Advanced unit testing

13.3.1 Web scraping

13.3.2 Testing your results

13.3.3 Mocking with parameters

13.3.4 Unit vs. integration tests

13.4 Integration testing

13.4.1 Integration testing with external data

13.5 Invoking Pester tests

14 Maintaining your code

14.1 Revisiting old code

14.1.1 Test before changing

14.1.2 Updating the function

14.1.3 Post update test

14.2 Automating your testing

14.2.1 Creating a GitHub workflow

14.3 Avoiding breaking changes

14.3.1 Parameter changes

14.3.2 Output changes

Appendix. Development environment set up

A.1 Development machine

A.1.1 Clone the book repository

A.2 Automation Server

A.2.1 Set up Jenkins

A.3 Linux environment

index.

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781638351894

1638351899

OCLC:

1376933838