Video: James O’Neill and his PowerShell profile

Video: James O’Neill and his PowerShell profile:
Here’s another cool tips and tricks recording from last PowerShell Deep Dive – James O’Neill is sharing the cool functions that he has in his PowerShell profile:

See more PowerShell Deep Dive recordings here.
This is a live recording from European TEC 2011 PowerShell Deep Dive conference. TEC US is just around the corner – April 29 – May 2, 2012 in San Diego. Register now - this is the best PowerShell event you can find!

Powershell 3.0 - Workflows (video by Bruce Payette)

This is a live recording from European TEC 2011 PowerShell Deep Dive conference.
Bruce Payette gives a tour of PowerShell Workflows.

 


What is Workflow

Powershell Worflow Architecture

Powershell Workflow Editor

Powershell - My Script Template

Here is my powershell script template.
Hope that's help someone out there.

# #############################################################################
# COMPANY INC - SCRIPT - POWERSHELL
# NAME: script.ps1
# 
# AUTHOR:  Francois-Xavier Cat, Company Inc
# DATE:  2012/03/14
# EMAIL: info@lazywinadmin.com
# 
# COMMENT:  This script will....
#
# VERSION HISTORY
# 1.0 2011.05.25 Initial Version.
# 1.1 2011.06.14 Upgrade with...
#
# TO ADD
# -Add a Function to ...
# -Fix the...
# #############################################################################


#--- CONFIG ---#
#region Configuration
 # Script Path/Directories
  $ScriptPath   = (Split-Path ((Get-Variable MyInvocation).Value).MyCommand.Path)
  $ScriptPluginPath  = $ScriptPath + "\plugin\"
  $ScriptToolsPath  = $ScriptPath + "\tools\"
  $ScriptOutputPath  = $ScriptPath + "\Output\"
 # Date Format
  $DateFormat   = Get-Date -Format "yyyyMMdd_HHmmss"

#end region configuration

#--- MODULE/SNAPIN/DOT SOURCING/REQUIREMENTS ---#
#region Module/Snapin/Dot Sourcing
 # DOT SOURCING Examples
  #. $ScriptPath\FUNCTION1.ps1
  #. $ScriptPath\FUNCTION2.ps1
  #. $ScriptPath\FUNCTION3.ps1
 # SNAPIN or MODULE Examples
  #if (-not(Get-PSSnapin Quest.ActiveRoles.ADManagement -ErrorAction Silentlycontinue)){Add-PSSnapin Quest.ActiveRoles.ADManagement}
  #if (-not(Get-PSSnapin Quest.ActiveRoles.ADManagement -ErrorAction Silentlycontinue)){Add-PSSnapin Quest.ActiveRoles.ADManagement}
  #if (-not(Get-Module -Name BSonPosh -ErrorAction Silentlycontinue)){Import-Module BSonPosh}
 # REQUIREMENTS
  # see the help: "get-help about_requires -full"
  # The Requires statement prevents a script from running unless the Windows
  # PowerShell version, snap-in, and snap-in version prerequisites are met. If
  # the prerequisites are not met, Windows PowerShell does not run the script.
  
#end region Module/Snapin/Dot Sourcing

#--- HELP ---#
#region help

<#
.SYNOPSIS
Cmdlet help is awesome.
.DESCRIPTION
This Script does a ton of beautiful things!
.PARAMETER
.PARAMETER
.INPUTS
.OUTPUTS
.EXAMPLE
.EXAMPLE
.LINK
http://www.lazywinadmin.com
#>
#end region help

#--- FUNCTIONS ---#
#region functions

#end region functions

#--- SCRIPT ---#
#region script

#end region script

Powershell - Monitor Active Directory Groups membership change

UPDATE: The most recent update is available on Github


See also those related BlogPosts:

• [2013/11/28] - Version 1.6 - [UPDATE] PowerShell - Monitor and Report Active Directory Group Membership Change
• [2013/10/13] - Version 1.5 - PowerShell - Monitor and Report Active Directory Group Membership Change

A couple of weeks back, my boss asked me to set a quick monitoring tool to check membership change made on Active Directory groups.
In my case here i'm talking about "Domain Admins" and "Enterprise Admins"

Unfortunately we currently don't have a tool in place to do this.

So why not taking advantage of Powershell ? :-)

Required
-A Script to monitor a list of Groups
-Create a Scheduled Task to run every minutes
(if you set the Scheduled task on a Windows Server 2008R2 or a Windows 7, you might want to take a look at my previous post: Run this task every minute !!!)

Description
This script will first check the members and export the result to a CSV file (if it does not exist yet) If a file already exist, it content will be compared with the result of $Members If different an email is sent to $EmailTo email with the member who has been added or removed.

Script
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Monitor-Active-Directory-4c4e04c7

#requires -version 2.0 

# ############################################################################# 
# NAME: TOOL-Monitor-AD_DomainAdmins_EnterpriseAdmins.ps1 
#  
# AUTHOR:  Francois-Xavier CAT 
# DATE:  2012/02/01 
# EMAIL: info@lazywinadmin.com 
#  
# COMMENT:  This script is monitoring group(s) in Active Directory and send an email when  
#     someone is added or removed 
# 
# REQUIRES:  
#  -Quest AD Snapin 
#  -A Scheduled Task 
# 
# VERSION HISTORY 
# 1.0 2012.02.01 Initial Version. 
# 1.1 2012.03.13 CHANGE to monitor both Domain Admins and Enterprise Admins
# 1.2 2013.09.23 FIX issue when specifying group with domain 'DOMAIN\Group'
#                CHANGE Script Format (BEGIN, PROCESS, END)
#                ADD Minimal Error handling. (TRY CATCH)
# 
# ############################################################################# 
  

BEGIN {
    TRY{
        # Monitor the following groups 
        $Groups =  "Domain Admins","Enterprise Admins"

        # The report is saved locally 
        $ScriptPath = (Split-Path ((Get-Variable MyInvocation).Value).MyCommand.Path) 
        $DateFormat = Get-Date -Format "yyyyMMdd_HHmmss" 

        # Email information
        $Emailfrom   = "sender@company.local" 
        $Emailto   = "receive@company.local" 
        $EmailServer  = "emailserver.company.local" 
  
        # Quest Active Directory Snapin 
         if (!(Get-PSSnapin Quest.ActiveRoles.ADManagement -ErrorAction Silentlycontinue)) 
          {Add-PSSnapin Quest.ActiveRoles.ADManagement}
        }
    CATCH{Write-Warning "BEGIN BLOCK - Something went wrong"}
}

PROCESS{

    TRY{
        FOREACH ($item in $Groups){

            # Let's get the Current Membership
            $GroupName = Get-Qadgroup $item
            $Members = Get-QADGroupMember $item -Indirect | Select-Object Name, SamAccountName, DN 
            $EmailSubject = "PS MONITORING - $GroupName Membership Change" 
   
            # Store the group membership in this file 
            $StateFile = "$($GroupName.domain.name)_$($GroupName.name)-membership.csv" 
   
            # If the file doesn't exist, create one
            If (!(Test-Path $StateFile)){  
                $Members | Export-csv $StateFile -NoTypeInformation 
                }
   
            # Now get current membership and start comparing it to the last lot we recorded 
            # catching changes to membership (additions / removals) 
            $Changes =  Compare-Object $Members $(Import-Csv $StateFile) -Property Name, SamAccountName, DN | 
                Select-Object Name, SamAccountName, DN,
                    @{n='State';e={
                        If ($_.SideIndicator -eq "=>"){
                            "Removed" } Else { "Added" }
                        }
                    }
  
            # If we have some changes, mail them to $Email 
            If ($Changes) {  
                $body = $($Changes | Format-List | Out-String) 
                $smtp = new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($EmailServer) 
                $smtp.Send($emailFrom, $emailTo, $EmailSubject, $body) 
                } 
            #Save current state to the csv 
            $Members | Export-csv $StateFile -NoTypeInformation -Encoding Unicode
        }
    }
    CATCH{Write-Warning "PROCESS BLOCK - Something went wrong"}

}#PROCESS
END{"Script Completed"}



#end region script

Run this Scheduled Task every minute !!!

Description
This is a weird one... This post will show you how to configure a Scheduled task every single minute.

By default on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, You have the options to run a task every: "5 minutes", "10 minutes", "15 minutes", "30 minutes","1 hour".




How to Schedule a task to run every minute ?
Today I was configuring a new Scheduled task on Windows Server 2008 R2. In my case i wanted the task to run every minute...

Using the CLI
I know this is easily possible using the tool Schtasks.exe
The command would look like something like that

schtasks /create /sc minute /mo 1 /tn "Hello World" /tr \\Server\scripts\helloworld.vbs

See Technet: Schtasks.exe for more details.

Using the GUI
I realize that i couldn't set the task to repeat under 5 minutes ;-(

So here is the trick:

• Edit the Trigger of your task. And as you can see ... nothing below 5 minutes :-(

• I realized the Repeat Task Every's Textbox could be edited... All you need to do is to set the value to "1 minute" manually, (manually type "1 minutes") and press OK. VOILA! :-)

Verifying your Trigger settings

Here you can see the task repeat every minute.

Hope that's help someone out there.