How to pull a sentence from a log file on multiple remote computers - powershell

Question

I am needing to pull a specific sentence from a log file on multiple remote computers. I have all of the computer names already but I do not know how to go about pulling contents of a file from them and copying all of it to a file so that I can reference the sentence from each computer with its machine name. Basically each machine has a specific number unique to itself that we need.
Before explaining, I assume powershell is the tool to use for this.
There are about 1800 machines and I have a variable for all of those. Then I assume I have to make a loop of some kind that runs on each of those machines.
the loop would pull the text from that file that I need and save it all to a file. I am basically pretty new in my Net Admin position with not a lot of PowerShell experience and I wondered if anyone could help.
$computers = ***list of computers***
$computers | ForEachObject{
Add-Content -Path C:\Users\Public\Activant\Eagle\3log.log -Value "Terminal information for ***need the info that is here***"
}
Get-Content -Path .\TERMINAL NUMBERS.txt

Answer 1

this seems to do what you want. [grin] it builds a scriptblock that does the work, hands that off to Invoke-Command with a list of systems to run it on, gathers the results, creates a list of $Non-Responders, removes unwanted properties added by the I-C cmdlet, and finally shows the two collections.
#requires -RunAsAdministrator
# fake reading in a text file
# in real life, use Get-Content
$ComputerNameList = #'
LocalHost
10.0.0.1
127.0.0.1
BetterNotBeThere
'# -split [System.Environment]::NewLine
$IC_ScriptBlock = {
$TargetFileName = 'C:\Temp\Grouping-Strings-List_2019-07-31.log'
# the " \b\w+\b \b\w+\b " is two words delimited by spaces
# so this will find any line that has two words between the listed phrases
$LinePattern = '^Acid Drum \b\w+\b \b\w+\b Psychedelic$'
# the next line is a no-match patern for testing
#$LinePattern = '^Acid Drum \b\w+\b$'
$Line = (Get-Content -LiteralPath $TargetFileName |
Select-String -Pattern $LinePattern).Line
if ([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Line))
{
$Line = '__Not Found__'
}
[PSCustomObject]#{
ComputerName = $env:COMPUTERNAME
LineText = $Line
}
}
$IC_Params = #{
ComputerName = $ComputerNameList
ScriptBlock = $IC_ScriptBlock
# comment out the next line to see any errors in the I-C call
ErrorAction = 'SilentlyContinue'
}
$Responders = Invoke-Command #IC_Params
$Non_Responders = $ComputerNameList.Where({$_ -notin $Responders.PSComputerName})
# the next line removes unwated properties added by "Invoke-Command"
$Responders = $Responders |
Select-Object -Property * -ExcludeProperty PSComputerName, PSShowComputerName, RunspaceId
$Responders
'=' * 40
$Non_Responders
output ...
ComputerName LineText
------------ --------
[MySysName] Acid Drum Instrumental Live Psychedelic
[MySysName] Acid Drum Instrumental Live Psychedelic
========================================
10.0.0.1
BetterNotBeThere
if needed, you can create a single collection from the two above fairly directly. [grin]

Answer 2

I think what you are trying to do is to READ the line from a file all computers in your list should have, located at C:\Users\Public\Activant\Eagle\3log.log
In that case, something like below should work:
# use UNC naming for the remote file path
$inputFile = 'C$\Users\Public\Activant\Eagle\3log.log' # I'm guessing this is the file you want to read
$outputFile = 'C:\TERMINAL NUMBERS.txt'
$computers = ***list of computers*** # the array of computer names
$result = $computers | ForEach-Object {
# test if the computer is online
if (Test-Connection -ComputerName $_ -Count 1 -Quiet) {
# create the full UNC path by prepending the common file path with the computer name
$file = '\\{0}\{1}' -f $_, $inputFile
# test if the file can be found or not
if (Test-Path -LiteralPath $file -PathType Leaf) {
# using non regex string search
$line = (Select-String -LiteralPath $file -Pattern "whatever you're looking for" -SimpleMatch).Line
if (!$line) {
# the file is there, but the pattern was not found
$line = "Pattern not found"
}
}
else {
$line = "File '$inputFile' not found."
}
}
else {
$line = 'Computer is Off-Line'
}
# Finally, add this info to your text file
Add-Content -Path $outputFile -Value "$_ --> $line"
# And emit an object for the $result collection. This will display nicely on screen,
# but also allow for the creation of a CSV file which might be better as output.
[PsCustomObject]#{
'Computer' = $_
'LogInfo' = $line
}
}
Afterwards you can read the output text file or (better I think) use the $result collection for output:
On screen:
$result | Format-Table -AutoSize
To CSV file
$result | Export-Csv -Path 'C:\TERMINAL NUMBERS.csv' -NoTypeInformation -Force