Invoke-Command not picking up after Pipe

by surge3333 at 2012-11-28 08:08:22

I’m having an issue trying to get the portion of my scriptblock after a pipe(|) within a Invoke-Command to work.

Running the command outside of the Invoke-Command works as it should. These commands -

$Days = “-1”
$Yesterday = ((Get-Date).AddDays($Days)).ToShortDateString()
$Yesterday
Get-ChildItem "\servername\d$\Program Files\whatever\Server.0..log" | Where-Object {$_.LastWriteTime -ge $Yesterday }


Properlys return this output –

11/27/2012


Directory: \servername\d$\Program Files\whatever


Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a— 11/28/2012 10:46 AM 9298444 Server.0.0.log



However I need to run from a different server, and am using this –

$Days = "-1"
$Yesterday = ((Get-Date).AddDays($Days)).ToShortDateString()
$Yesterday

# Define credentials used to connect to the server.
$User = "domain\user"
$secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString $DomainPswd -AsPlainText -Force
$Creds = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ($User, $secpasswd)

$Server = "servername"

$s = new-pssession -computername $Server -credential $Creds
Invoke-Command -session $s -scriptblock {Get-ChildItem "\servername\d$\Program Files\whatever\Server.0.
.log" | Where-Object {$.LastWriteTime -ge $Yesterday } }


Returns all log files found, regardless of the LastWriteTime specified –


11/27/2012


Directory: \servername\d$\Program Files\whatever


Mode LastWriteTime Length Name PSComputerName
---- ------------- ------ ---- --------------
-a— 11/28/2012 10:39 AM 9296684 Server.0.0.log servername
-a— 11/23/2012 8:14 AM 10485804 Server.0.1.log servername
-a— 11/18/2012 5:14 PM 10485820 Server.0.2.log servername
-a— 11/14/2012 5:27 AM 10486282 Server.0.3.log servername
-a— 11/10/2012 9:54 AM 10485980 Server.0.4.log servername


Any thoughts as to what I’m missing here?
by DonJ at 2012-11-28 08:26:38
The contents of the -ScriptBlock are passed to the remote server. It doesn’t know what $Yesterday is - that variable exists on your local machine. You can look into the -Arguments (I think) parameter of Invoke-Command - especially the examples in the help - for a way to pass variables from your local machine to the remote one. Or, and this is easier, just include your $Yesterday in the -ScriptBlock:


Invoke-Command -session $s -scriptblock {$Yesterday = ((Get-Date).AddDays($Days)).ToShortDateString() ; Get-ChildItem "\servername\d$\Program Files\whatever\Server.0.*.log" | Where-Object {$
.LastWriteTime -ge $Yesterday } }
by surge3333 at 2012-11-28 09:51:27
Thanks Don, I was able to get that to work using both your example and using the –ArgumentList –

Invoke-Command -session $s -scriptblock {param($Yesterday) Get-ChildItem "\servername\d$\Program Files\whatever\Server.0..log" | Where-Object {$_.LastWriteTime -ge $Yesterday } } -ArgumentList $Yesterday

However trying a different command, I’m having issues as well. This guy is just returning blank lines for me, however when running the Get-Content….Select-String locally it works fine –

Invoke-Command -session $s -scriptblock {param($ParseExpression) Get-Content "\servername\d$\Program Files\whatever\Server.0.0.log" | Select-String $ParseExpression } -ArgumentList $ParseExpression

Thanks………
by DonJ at 2012-11-28 11:06:05
Without having access to the files, the content of $ParseExpression, and all that, I can’t really troubleshoot that (but no need to upload the file here). The syntax looks correct. Consider troubleshooting it by removing variables. Just pass it a static expression for Select-String, and eliminate the argumentlist entirely, as a test. Something is different than what you’re running locally. You need to find out what that is.
by surge3333 at 2012-11-28 12:02:26
Thanks - I wasn’t able to find any combination that would get it to work as a single command. I ended up splitting the Select-String into a separate command and that now works for me -

Invoke-Command -session $s -scriptblock {$a = Get-Content "\servername\d$\Program Files\whatever\Server.0.0.log" }
$a | Select-String $ParseExpression


Thanks again for the help.
by Aleksandar at 2012-11-30 09:36:07
If you have PowerShell 3.0, you can use Using scope. Also, you don’t need "\servername\d$" because you are executing a script block on that server thanks to your $s session.

Invoke-Command -session $s -scriptblock {Get-ChildItem "d:\Program Files\whatever\Server.0.
.log" | Where-Object {$_.LastWriteTime -ge $Using:Yesterday } }