PowerShell Team

Automating the world one-liner at a time…

Introducing the Azure PowerShell DSC (Desired State Configuration) extension

UPDATE 11/4/2014: For information on using PSCredential objects, please refer to this blog post. UPDATE 11/21/2014: For information on OS support, and other features, please refer to our release history. For the latest information regarding DSC Extension, refer to the product documentation. .......... Earlier this year Microsoft ...

Chef with PowerShell DSC Now Public!

Many of you have seen the demos done by our friends at Chef, which show how they planned to leverage PowerShell DSC. Those plans are now public as of the publishing of the PowerShell DSC Cookbook for Chef announced in the recent blog post by Adam Edwards. Check it out here:  http://www.getchef.com/blog/2014/07/24/getting-ready-for-chef-...

Creating a Secure Environment using PowerShell Desired State Configuration

Introduction: Traditionally, IT environments have secured their business critical information against external threats by adding additional layers of security to the org’s network (e.g. firewalls, DMZs, etc.).  However many of today’s attacks are coming from inside the network so a new “assume breach” approach must be adopted. In ...

DSC Resource Kit Wave 4 is Live!

The value and number of PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) resources coming from Microsoft continues to grow. As of the release of DSC Resource Kit Wave 3, we were up to 50 total.   Now, we're happy to announce the DSC Resource Kit Wave 4.  This wave contains 16 new DSC resources, taking us up to 67 total resources ...

Wish I can author DSC Resource in C#!!

In previous blog, we learned how one can use their PowerShell skills to author DSC resources very easily. Still there are folks (we met some at TechEd NA) who want to author their DSC resources using C# because they are more productive with it than PowerShell language. Well, you can fully leverage the power of DSC by writing your resources in ...

What’s in a name? Using prefixes in PowerShell.

We’ve talked about this in the past but it’s time for a reminder.  PowerShell uses prefixes in front of nouns to avoid name collisions.  Imagine how many collisions there would be if people used the noun “USER” directly.  Instead, we have cmdlets *-ADUser, *-VPNUser, and *-RDUser.  The use of the prefix avoids name collisions...

DSC Diagnostics Module– Analyze DSC Logs instantly now!

Have you ever witnessed a DSC Configuration run where you had no idea about what it might have done behind the scenes? Well, then your worries end here! During any DSC Operation, the DSC engine writes into windows event logs, which are like bread crumbs that the engine leaves along the way during any execution. If you read the blog here ...

Need more DSC Resources? Announcing DSC Resource Kit Wave 2

Good news everyone! Starting today, you can use Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) to configure Active Directory and SQL Server (including High Availability Groups). We are pleased to release the next wave of the DSC Resource Kit – one that enables you to start using DSC to solve your real world problems and scenarios. ...

Want to secure credentials in Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration?

As you start using Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC), you might need to specify credentials for resources. In a previous post we showed you how to define a resource that has a credential property.  In this post, I’ll discuss how to properly encrypt credentials when used in a DSC configuration. Prerequisites First, ...