Don’t Be Afraid To Learn PowerShell, You’ll Need It & You’ll Learn To Love It!

As I started my career in IT doing data crunching, OLAP & development in VBA & VB5.00/6.0 it isn’t that surprising I’ve done most of my automation in VBScript. I’m very familiar with it and even in the Windows 2008 Core era it was very useful as we didn’t have .NET in it at that time, meaning no PowerShell (no, the unsupported hack to get it on there does not count).

The first real PowerShell use for me came with Exchange 2007. That worked out pretty well, but at the time we didn’t use it for much more than Exchange. Today, more and more I’m starting to use PowerShell versus VBScript. For one sometimes VBScript can’t get it done, it’s not being developed any more in its capabilities and two, PowerShell commandlets do pack a serious punch!

Since Windows Server 2008 R2 PowerShell has gotten better overall support and with Windows 8 it is everywhere, natively. That’s very good and it means we can do all we need to do now (well a whole lot of it) in PowerShell. And then I haven’t even mentioned the entire workflow support in Windows 8 PowerShell!  As an old VB guy I had to get over my dislike for curly braces. I also need to earn the different syntax and especially the way in which to use the programming constructs (control flow, sub routines, operators, data types).

A lot of people tend to focus on the one liners. These are great and powerful, but they often reminded me of the old discussion with C/C++ developers about code readability & maintainability.  For that purpose we don’t mind that the code is more verbose. One liners are not the goal  but they are fun. Just remember that all code, how small it may be, one day will have to be maintained. The more readable, logical and easy to understand it is, the better. The whole “self documenting” thingy Smile.  One liners do not always fit in here. But to demonstrate I have nothing against them I’ll show you a real easy example for all you out there dealing with the jump to PowerShell. If you get hooked on one liners just be sure to use them with reason and go visit the blog of Jeff Wouters , you’ll become good scripting buddies.

Let’s say in VBScript you needed to format a date in a specific way. In VBScript you have a very limited number of format option to use. So when you want something funky like “20120414” (YearMonthDay) as a date format you’d use a function that builds that string and pads the numbers with zero if needed. You can either write a generic function to handle all possible date needs or a custom/purpose built one for just the needs at hand.

Just to get the gist of this, it could look a bit like this:

WScript.echo FormatDateForMyNeed() PrivateFunction FormatDateForMyNeed () Dim sDate, sYear, sMonth, sDay sDate =Now() sYear =Year(sDate) sMonth =Month(sDate) IfLen(sMonth) =1Then sMonth ="0"& sMonth sDay =Day(sDate) IfLen (sDay) =1Then sDay ="0"& sDay FormatDateForMyNeed = sYear & sMonth & sDay End Function

Driven by “routine” & a VBScript background you could mash up some functions in PowerShell and make it a convoluted scripting exercise:

function BuildDate { $date=Get-Date $String= [string]$date.year $MONTH= [String]$date.month $String+= PadString "0"2$Month$DAY= [String]$date.day $String+= PadString "0"2$DAYReturn$String } function PadString ($PadChar, $PaddedLength, [String]$StringToPad) { $StringToPad= ($padChar* ($PaddedLength-$stringToPad.length)) +$stringToPadReturn$StringToPad } BuildDate

But PowerShell has way better date format support than VBScript and you can just write this:

Get-Date -format "yyyyMMdd"

Now that’s a one liner I have nothing against and yes, it saves a whole lot of effort. Sure this is a real simple example but it proves a point. Do your self a favor, take out a couple of hours a week and dabble around in PowerShell. You’ll add a valuable time saving tool to your inventory and gain a precious skillset Smile for a bright future! Need a good example? See this blog post by Janssen Jones to see some workflow goodness and what it can do.

Learning Resources for Windows 8 Clustering, WNLB & Hyper-V 3.0

I know a lot of you are, just like me, actively investigating Windows 8 & Hyper-V. You’re downloading the Beta, reading blog post, discussing scenarios and use cases and that’s great. You’re investing in a bright future Smile

Here are some blog post that contain gems of information and that I’d like to bring to your attention:

Enjoy!

No Hyper-V Module for Windows PowerShell After Upgrading to Windows Server 8?

When I upgraded some of my Hyper-V hosts from Windows 2008 R2 to Windows 8 I noticed I wanted to do some experiments using the Hyper-v Module for Windows PowerShell. So the first thing I did was install the Windows PowerShell integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) via the Add Roles and Features Wizard on my client. You don’t usually install this on your servers.

ISEPosh

 

We opted to restart automatically if required, so we get a warning this server might restart.

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Windows PowerShell ISE is installing

installISE2

 

We are informed of our successful installation.installISE3

That was easy and no reboot required. So we launch ISE and start testing some commands of our new Hyper-V Module. But that doesn’t do much for us. Nothing happens.get-command 1

 

So I try some more commands. But no luck, just some errors that the commands are not recognized or Get-Help can’t find anything of that command.  I also not that for non of the Hyper-V commands I have any IntelliSense support.

Nope2 

No jio

So it seams the Hyper-V Module for Windows PowerShell is not installed. But I can’t make that out from the Roles Wizard.

I needed to get this going fast so I uninstalled the Hyper-V role and than added it again. That did the trick as now the Hyper-V Module for Windows PowerShell is also installed because I can execute commands

Success.

 

Just install the Hyper-V Module for Windows PowerShell via Features

But after discussing this with Microsoft it turns out that uninstalling and reinstalling the Hyper-V role is not necessary at all. You see when you upgrade a Window 2008 R2 node to Windows 8 it does not install Hyper-V by default as this would change the original install base and they try not to install features you didn’t have before during an upgrade. On a clean install where you add the Hyper-V role you won’t have this issue as the Hyper-V Module for Windows PowerShell is installed by default. What confused me is that I didn’t see an option under Roles to add Role Services to roles as I was used to do in Windows 2008 R2. There is no sub tree or anything.

Hyper-VRoleIInstalled

 

I was thinking along the same path in Windows 8 but here we can find it in the in “Add Roles and Features Wizard” under Features / Remote Server Administration Tools sub tree. That has two entries. One for Feature Administration Tools and one for Role Administration tools and und the latter we find the Hyper-V Management Tools with Hyper-V Module for Windows PowerShell. Just a tip Smile

You can add it your self after the upgrade by going to Server Manager and starting the Add Roles & Features Wizard.

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You go through the normal steps and select to install Hyper-V Module for Windows PowerShell.

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We are asked for confirmation of our request actions.

installit

 

The Hyper-V Module for Windows PowerShell is being installed.

installit2

 

And we have a successful install. We can start scripting on that node right way Smile

Installit3

Happy scripting!

Upgrading Hyper-V Cluster Nodes to Windows Server 2012 (Beta) – Part 1

This is a multipart series based on some lab test & work I did.

  1. Part 1 Upgrading Hyper-V Cluster Nodes to Windows Server 2012 (Beta) – Part 1
  2. Part 2 Upgrading Hyper-V Cluster Nodes to Windows Server 2012 (Beta) – Part 2
  3. Part 3 Upgrading Hyper-V Cluster Nodes to Windows 8 (Beta) – Part 3

After I got back from the MVP Summit 2012 in Bellevue/Redmond I could wait to start playing with a Windows 8 Hyper-V cluster so I decided to upgrade my Windows 2008 R2 cluster nodes to Windows 8. That means evicting them on by one, upgrading them and adding them to a new Windows 8 cluster. As we can build a one node cluster this can be done a node at the time. This isn’t a fail proof definite “How To”, I’m just sharing what I did.

Evicting a node

Before evicting a node make sure all virtual machines are running on the other node(s). As you can see the cluster warrior has 2 nodes, crusader & saracen (I was listening to some Saxon heavy metal at the time I built that lab setup). We evacuated node saracen prior to evicting it.

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Evict the node & confirm when asked.

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When this is done all storage is off line to the node evicted from the cluster. No need to worry about that.

Upgrade that node to Windows 8

To anyone having installed/upgraded to Windows 2008 R2 this should all be a very recognizable experience. Being lazy, I left the iSCSI initiator configuration in there with the Hyper-V & failover cluster roles installed during the upgrade. Now for production environments I like to build my nodes from scratch to have an exactly known, new and clean installation base. But for my test lab at home I wanted to get it done as fast as possible. If only the days had more hours …For extra safety you can pull the plug (or disable the switch ports) on your iSCSI or FC connections and make sure no storage is presented to the node during the upgrade process. Now please do mind is use Intel server grade NIC adaptors for which Windows 8 beta has drivers. Your situation may vary so I can’t guarantee the 7 year old FC HBA in your lab server will just work, OK!?

So run setup.exe from the Windows 8 (Beta) ISO you extracted to a folder on the server or  from the (bootable) USB you created with the downloaded ISO.

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The Windows Setup installer will start.

04 run setup

 

Click on “Install now” to proceed and start the setup process.

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Select to “Go online to get the latest updates for Setup (Recommended)”

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So it looks for updates on line.

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It didn’t find any but that’s OK.

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Select the installation you want. I went with for Server with a GUI as I want screen shots. But as I wrote in the blog post Windows 8 Server With GUI, Minimal Server Interface & Server Core Lesson with the Desktop Experience Feature you can turn it into a Server Core Installation and back again now. So no regrets with any choice you make here, which is a nice improvement that can save us a lot of time.

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Accept the EULA

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We opt to upgrade (in production I go for a clean install)

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I get notified that I have to remove PerfectDisk. I had an evaluation copy of Raxco PerfectDisk installed I used to do some testing with redirected CSV traffic and defragmentation (see Some Feedback On How to defrag a Hyper-V R2 Cluster Shared Volume).

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So the upgrade was cancelled.

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I uninstalled PerfectDisk but still it was a no go. I  had to remove all traces of it in the registry & files systems that the uninstall left or the upgrade just wouldn’t start. But after that it worked.

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That means we can kick of the upgrade! It all looks very familiar Smile It takes a couple of reboots and some patience. But all in all it’s a fast process.

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After this step it takes a couple of reboots and some patience. But all in all it’s a fast process. After some reboots and a screen that goes dark in between those …we get our restyled beta fish.

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And voila we’re where we need to be … Smile

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After the upgrade process I ran into one error. The GUI for Failover Clustering would not start. The solution if found for that was simply to remove that role and add it again. That did the trick.

ClusGUI

 

So this was a description of the first steps to transition a  Windows 2008 R2 SP1 cluster to a  Windows 8 (Beta) Cluster. As seen we evict the nodes one by one to upgrade them or do a clean install. In the latter case you’ll need to do the iSCSI initiator configuration again,  install the Failover Cluster role and in the case of a Hyper-V cluster the Hyper-V role. The nodes can than be added to a new Windows 8 cluster, starting out with a one node cluster. More on that in the second part of this blog post.