[Workflow] restart-computer

PowerShell Help
1

Hey all,

I seem to have run into some peculiar things with my workflow which I can’t seem to pinpoint :S

I have this workflow I am toying around with, to reboot a whole list of servers parallel. We use a function to retrieve a bunch of servers with all sorts of properties from a cmdb. I then want to reboot my resulted servers if they don’t have a property " restart:“N”. Nothing too fancy here …
Problem is when I run this workflow I get different computers every time where powershell has problems "verifying the computer has been restarted… " .

So here is the code:

workflow Reboot-Server
{
param(
[Parameter(Mandatory = $true)]
[ValidateNotNull()]
$Serverlist,

    [Parameter(Mandatory = $false)]
    [int32]$ThrottleLimit =25,

    [Parameter(Mandatory = $false)]
    [PSCredential]$credentials,

    [Parameter(Mandatory = $false)]
    [int]$Timeout = 240
)

foreach -parallel -throttlelimit $throttleLimit ($server in $Serverlist) 
{
    if ($server.Restart -ne 'N')
    {
        if (Test-Connection -Count 1 -ComputerName $($server.fqdn) -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Verbose) 
        {
            try 
            { 
                Write-Verbose -Message "Rebooting $($server.fqdn)"
                 Restart-Computer -PSComputerName $($server.fqdn) -Timeout $Timeout -Delay 10 -Wait -PSCredential $credentials -Force 
            }
            Catch
            {
                Write-Warning -Message "Failed To reboot $($server.fqdn)"
            }
        }
        else
        {
            Write-Warning -Message "$($server.fqdn) Not online!"
        }
    }
}

}

When I run this workflow 10+ times it’s different computers with problems :S
Microsoft.PowerShell.Management\Restart-Computer : Failed to restart the computer with the following error message: The computer did not finish restarting within the specified time-out period…

I tried for -For WMI, -For Winrm and default Powershell but same weird unreliable results.

Second thing is, when I do a measure command of my workflow it runs for 900+ seconds. Which I find weird when I specify a timeout of 240 seconds :S

2

Yeah, that -Wait thing, for me, has always been super-dicey. I’d consider writing your own restart routine, frankly, that re-checks the computer every 10 seconds or something.

And your timeout is probably under a threshold. Frankly, Workflow isn’t meant to be “quick” it’s meant to be “eventually.” If you’re wanting a timeout, you probably shouldn’t be using Workflow.