Practical Automation with PowerShell

Practical Automation with PowerShell MEAP V05
Copyright
welcome
brief contents
Chapter 1: Why automate with PowerShell
	1.1 What you’ll learn in the book
		1.1.1 Building Blocks
	1.2 The Anatomy of Automation
		1.2.1 Automation Goal
		1.2.2 Triggers
		1.2.3 Actions
		1.2.4 The Future
	1.3 Why PowerShell for Automation
		1.3.1 Easy
		1.3.2 Power of .Net Framework
		1.3.3 Portable
		1.3.4 Secure
		1.3.5 Extensible
		1.3.6 Microsoft’s commitment
	1.4 What PowerShell isn’t
		1.4.1 Job Scheduler
		1.4.2 Front-End
	1.5 Choosing the right tool for the job
		1.5.1 Automation Decision Tree
		1.5.2 No need to reinvent the wheel
	1.6 What you need to get started today
	1.7 Summary
Chapter 2: Get started automating
	2.1 What to automate
	2.2 The automation process
		2.2.1 Building blocks
		2.2.2 Phases
		2.2.3 Combining building blocks and phases
	2.3 The anatomy of PowerShell automation
	2.4 Cleaning up old files (your first building blocks)
		2.4.1 Your first function
		2.4.2 Returning data from functions
		2.4.3 Testing your functions
		2.4.4 Problems to avoid when adding functions to scripts
		2.4.5 Brevity versus efficiency
		2.4.6 Careful what you automate
		2.4.7 Putting it all together
	2.5 Storing functions
		2.5.1 Scripts vs. Modules vs. Profiles
		2.5.2 When to add functions to a module
		2.5.3 Creating a script module
		2.5.4 Module creation tips
	2.6 Summary
Chapter 3: Scheduling automation scripts
	3.1 Scheduled scripts
		3.1.1 Know your dependencies and take care of 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
		Installing your custom module options
		Security options
		Creating PowerShell Actions
		Job Logs
		3.2.2 Create scheduled task via PowerShell
		Create a new scheduled task
		Exporting and importing scheduled tasks
		Register-ScheduledJob
		3.2.3 Cron scheduler
		3.2.4 Jenkins scheduler
	3.3 Watcher scripts
		3.3.1 Designing watcher scripts
		Use cmdlet based filters
		Avoid recursion
		Process In Order
		Log Actions
		Avoid unnecessary commands
		3.3.2 Invoking Action Scripts
		Resource Limiting
		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
	3.5 Summary
Chapter 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
	4.6 Summary
Chapter 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 WS-Management (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
	5.8 Summary
Chapter 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.
	6.4 Summary
Chapter 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 Insert 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
	7.8 Summary
Chapter 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
	8.6 Summary