Help with PowerShell Script - Newbie

PowerShell Help
1

Hello!

Very much a newbie to PowerShell but have experience writing shell scripts (unsure if commands can be linked to one another). I am trying to write a script where I want to view a log file and get a count of a number of expired rows. In shell it would look something like this

cd <directory>
cat logfile | grep -i expired | wc -l

Something along those lines should give me a count of all the expired rows. Would the same work in powershell? I am unsure on how we could write it.

Apologies for the basic question!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

2

AS,
welcome to the forum. :wave:t4:

Could you please choose a little more descriptive subject next time? 99.9% of the questions asked here are questions about PowerShell. :wink:

In my experience it does not make that much sense to ā€œmigrateā€ or ā€œtranslateā€ shell scripts into PowerShell one command by one because PowerShell uses rich and powerful objects instead of stupid text. :wink:

So of course your task is quite easily achievable with PowerShell as well. You could use

to find the desired strings or patterns in a given file.

$Result = Select-String -Path 'C:\sample\logfile.log' -Pattern 'expired' -SimpleMatch 
$Result.count
1 Like
3

Thank you so much Olaf! Apologies for the simple header I will ensure it is more suitable next time!

The log files I want to view are hosted on another server (Linux Server to be exact) I can view these via a URL or obviously logging into the server itself, what would you suggest be the best way? Also how would this affect the command?

4

Well as usual ā€¦ it depends. What would you like to do with the information you get? It will probably run faster when you run it locally but the result will be the same.

5

Sadly no it will not be a local file, it is remote, so would get the count and push it out to a text file that I would create.

Apologies for the shell below but as I say thatā€™s mainly what I know :smiley: & to try and give an idea what I am trying to do

ssh <server>

cd <path>

cat logfile | grep -i expired | wc -l > somefile.txt
6

Hmmm ā€¦ I donā€™t have any experience with linux server but Iā€™m sure there is something like a task scheduler. If I recall it right itā€™s been named cron job or cron daemon in the past. Why donā€™t you run this task locally on that remote server and only read the result remotely from the local machine?

7

Unfortunately it isnā€™t my server so can only read into it, like I said there is a URL to view the logs so I could read via the web browser if easier?

8

???
You change the conditions with every reply. Or ā€¦ whatā€™s just as bad as this ā€¦ you donā€™t provide all information.

9

Apologies Olaf donā€™t mean to be confusing and misleading.

So I canā€™t write anything on the server as it isnā€™t my server so I have to write the script remotely. I can connect into the server e.g. with SSH to view the log filesā€¦ Or I can connect through a web browser and view the log files that way (I have uploaded a screenshot).

So I want to write a script to connect to the server or webpage and get a count of how many have ā€œExpiredā€

I hope I have cleared up any confusion!

Webpage log file
Webpage log file1386Ɨ376 180 KB

10

You still could ask the owner of the server to cooperate. :wink:

Iā€™ve read about the possibility to use SSH with PowerShell to connect to Linux server but Iā€™m not familiar with it. :man_shrugging:t4: You may search for more info about this topic either here or the PowerShellGallery or maybe StackOverflow.

You could try to download the file via Invoke-WebRequest and process it locally.

11

Hey Olaf,

So I have used the invoke web request as you have suggested and getting a connection to the log file :slight_smile:

$response = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'http://scrbampdk008253:2111/log/amps/JseCertReport.out'  -TimeoutSec 60

As stated this allows me to read into the log file

PS C:\Users\SA-CRBRVRBEDM01> $response.RawContent
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; script-src 'unsafe-inline'
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 7189
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2021 09:30:55 GMT
Last-Modified: Tue, 27 Jul 2021 01:11:18 GMT
Server: Jetty(9.4.12.v20180830)

Certificate Unknown:bunn_key.pem:No date/Invalid date:Certificate Date=:Run Date=2021-07-27:Expiry Days=():3
Certificate Unknown:cargosmart_key.pem:No date/Invalid date:Certificate Date=:Run Date=2021-07-27:Expiry Days=():3
Certificate Expired:croatia_cert_10062021.pem::Certificate Date=2021-06-10:Run Date=2021-07-27:Expiry Days=(-47 days):1
Certificate Expired:croatia_key_10062021.pem::Certificate Date=2021-06-10:Run Date=2021-07-27:Expiry Days=(-47 days):1
Certificate Unknown:DBH_key.pem:No date/Invalid date:Certificate Date=:Run Date=2021-07-27:Expiry Days=():3
Certificate Fine:denmark_24032023.pem::Certificate Date=2023-03-24:Run Date=2021-07-27:Expiry Days=(605 days):0

Then I tried to get it to print out just those with expired but unfortunately not getting any luck. Using an if command I am able to print out 1 if it finds expired which is a starting point but sadly not what I am after :smiley:

PS C:\Users\SA-CRBRVRBEDM01> $response = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'http://scrbampdk008253:2111/log/amps/JseCertReport.out'  -TimeoutSec 60
  if( $response.RawContent.Contains('expired'))
  {
  $result = 1}
  else
  {
$result = 0}

PS C:\Users\SA-CRBRVRBEDM01> $response.count
1

PS C:\Users\SA-CRBRVRBEDM01>

I tried to remove the if statement but and run another line using the -Pattern command but at the moment no luck as unsure.

$response = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'http://scrbampdk008253:2111/log/amps/JseCertReport.out'  -TimeoutSec 60
$expired = ($response | where -Pattern 'expired' -SimpleMatch).count
12

Use Select-String:

$response.RawContent -split '\n' | Select-String 'expired'
1 Like
13

Hi Matt,

Thanks so much for that :smiley: great help - as I only want to see this as a count I tried to change the .RawContent to .Count but no output, how would I show this as a count?

14

($response.RawContent -split '\n' | Select-String 'expired').Count

1 Like
15

Thank you so much Matt!

16

Thank you both Olef & Matt - canā€™t thank you enough :smiley: