Getting Confirmations

PowerShell Help
1

I am experimenting with simple tasks on remote servers with the code below. It simply goes to a list of remote servers and creates a new folder:

"Server1", "Server2" | ForEach-Object {INVOKE-COMMAND -ComputerName $_ -ScriptBlock{
New-Item -ItemType directory -Path C:\webs\www\TestFolder}}

This works well enough. The results include the names of the folder being created, the servers where these folders are created and the data and time the folders are created.

I then use the code below to remove the folders I have just created.

"Server1", "Server2" | ForEach-Object {INVOKE-COMMAND -ComputerName $_ -ScriptBlock{Remove-Item -Path C:\webs\www\TestFolder}}

It completed the task but does not provide any sort of confirmation. While I understand that no news is good news, what if I want to get some sort of confirmation on screen so I can choose to write it into an output file if needed? How would I do that? I tried adding “-verbose” at the end but it made no difference.

2

My goal is read in a list of servers from a text file or csv file and perform some tasks (such as simply creating a new directory or something far more complicated). At the end of the process, I would like the results of the process to be written back to the input file so I would have something like this:

Server1 success

Server2 error

Server3 success

 

3

You must add the -Verbose parameter inside the script block.

For example:

"Server1", "Server2" | ForEach-Object {
    INVOKE-COMMAND -ComputerName $_ -ScriptBlock{
        Remove-Item -Path C:\webs\www\TestFolder -Verbose
    }
}
4

Use the built-in transcript cmdlets to trap what is going on as well as the -verbose switch the Luc addresses.

# get function / cmdlet details
(Get-Command -Name Start-Transcript).Parameters
Get-help -Name Start-Transcript -Examples
Get-help -Name Start-Transcript -Full
Get-help -Name Start-Transcript -Online


(Get-Command -Name Stop-Transcript).Parameters
Get-help -Name Stop-Transcript -Examples
Get-help -Name Stop-Transcript -Full
Get-help -Name Stop-Transcript -Online
5

This is what I have come up so far. It is reading from the CSV file correctly but not updating the Status column correctly. The CSV file only has two columns: ServerName and Status.

Import-Csv -Path "C:\Users\thchen\Desktop\ServerList.csv" | ForEach-Object {
INVOKE-COMMAND -ComputerName $_.ServerName -ScriptBlock {
Try {
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path C:\webs\www\TedTest
$_.Status = "Success"}
Catch {
$_.Status = "Error"
}}}
6

Thanks Luc, I tried

-ScriptBlock{Remove-Item -Path C:\webs\www\TedTest -Verbose}}

And it gave me the correct feedback. But now I am wrestling with writing process status into a csv file.

And thanks postanote, I learned something new.

7

Ted, in the future I’d recommend using standard formatting approaches to your script.
Formatting makes code much easier to troubleshoot, especially when others need to read your code to attempt to help.

[pre]
Import-Csv -Path “C:\Users\thchen\Desktop\ServerList.csv” | ForEach-Object {
INVOKE-COMMAND -ComputerName $.ServerName -ScriptBlock {
Try
{
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path C:\webs\www\TedTest
$.Status = “Success”
}
Catch
{
$_.Status = “Error”
}
}
}
[/pre]

8

The code inside the script block is executed in a new PSSession and cannot update any object of the calling session.

That’s why $_.Status doesn’t mean anything inside the script block because you are refering to an object outside.

Here is a suggestion of code (though I didn’t test it…)

$ServerList = Import-Csv -Path 'C:\Users\thchen\Desktop\ServerList.csv'

$StatusList = [System.Collections.Generic.List[PSCustomObject]]::new()

foreach($Server in $ServerList){
    
    $Status = Invoke-Command -ComputerName $ServerList.ServerName -ScriptBlock {
        
        try{
            $Null = New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path 'C:\webs\www\TedTest' -ErrorAction Stop
            'Success'
        }
        catch{
            'Error'
        }
    }
    
    $StatusElement = [PSCustomObject]@{
        ServerName = $ServerList.ServerName
        Status = $Status
    }
    
    $StatusList.Add($StatusElement)
}

$StatusList | Export-Csv -Path 'C:\Users\thchen\Desktop\ServerListWithStatus.csv'
9

Thanks Luc.

I ran the code and this is what I get in the ServerListWithStatus.csv file.

#TYPE System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject
ServerName Status
System.Object[] System.Object[]
System.Object[] System.Object[]
System.Object[] System.Object[]
So it looks like we are now on the right trace. I have three rows of data and the script is writing three rows of data. Thinking I need to convert the object back to string, I modified the last line of code to this 
$StatusList.ToString() | Export-Csv -Path 'C:\Users\thchen\Desktop\ServerListWithStatus.csv'
And now I am getting this in the CSV file
#TYPE System.String
Length
72
10

Use -NoTypeInformation switch of Export-Csv cmdlet to get rid of type name in the CSV.

11

I think I may have found the answer to get rid of System.Object in csv files. Let me play around some more with the code. Thanks everyone.