How to import an external DSC module into PowerShell environment? - powershell

Question

I have Windows 10 / Windows 2016 TP5 (PowerShell 5.1). I want to use a PowerShell DSC module from GitHub in my configuration, for example xTimeZone.
What shall I do to be able to reference it with Import-DSCResource?
It's the first time I try to add a module other than from an installer-based product and maybe I am missing something obvious. Isn't there a git clone-based procedure like pip or gem utilise?
I verified the value of $env:PSModulePath and it has two directories defined: C:\Users\techraf\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules;C:\Windows\system32\W
indowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules.
I copied the contents of xTimeZone directory to C:\Users\techraf\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules.
PowerShell does not see it. Tried to copy on different levels of the repository - all failed.
When running the example script I get:
At line:12 char:4
+ Import-DSCResource -ModuleName xTimeZone
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Could not find the module 'xTimeZone'.
At line:16 char:9
+ xTimeZone TimeZoneExample
+ ~~~~~~~~~
Undefined DSC resource 'xTimeZone'. Use Import-DSCResource to import the resource.
+ CategoryInfo : ParserError: (:) [], ParseException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ModuleNotFoundDuringParse
Per advice from the answer, after moving the module from C:\Users\techraf\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules to C:\Windows\system32\W
indowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules the first error disappeared and I get only:
At line:16 char:9
+ xTimeZone TimeZoneExample
+ ~~~~~~~~~
Undefined DSC resource 'xTimeZone'. Use Import-DSCResource to import the resource.
+ CategoryInfo : ParserError: (:) [], ParentContainsErrorRecordException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ResourceNotDefined

Answer 1

About DSC resources
DSC resources are, in essence, specialised PowerShell modules. The resource module must export Get, Set and Test-TargetResource commands (another option is available with PowerShell 5, but out of scope in the context of xTimeZone).
Resources are always deployed in the following structure:
<Modules>\<ModuleName>\DSCResources\<ResourceName>
Get-DscResource looks for "modules" inside the DSCResources folder, as a sub-folder of an existing module. If it can't see the resource you cannot use it.
xTimeZone
xTimeZone consists of:
A PowerShell module which contains little more than a manifest and some examples.
A DSC resource named xTimeZone.
Windows PowerShell cannot find the resource unless it's correctly deployed. These instructions apply for downloading the module.
Select the master branch and download the zip of the repository from: https://github.com/PowerShell/xTimeZone/tree/master
Extract the zip file to a folder.
Rename xTimeZone-master to xTimeZone.
Copy xTimeZone to C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules
Verify you can discover the DSCResource:
Get-DscResource
If, for some reason, you're having problems with Program Files\Modules, you might use:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\
However, as this area is part of the operating systems files it's a lower preference.
Configuration
Once you can discover the resource, you need to import it into each Configuration element in which you wish to use it.
Configuration SomeConfiguration {
Import-DscResource -ModuleName xTimeZone
# Nodes statement follows
}

Answer 2

*Not trying to answer, just wanted to put in additional feedback, but don't have enough stack-street-cred to add a comment...
Depending on the DSC you're trying to use, sometimes you have to copy the content from the "source" folder (that contains aforementioned "modules" and "DSCResources" sub folders) up to the root of the dscname you're trying to work with. In my instance I was using the SqlServerDsc (url below) and am not overly versed so it took a while to figure out what was going on.
https://github.com/dsccommunity/SqlServerDsc
I initially followed directions provided on github of extracting the zip to a PS accessible directory, but nothing new was accessible via get-dscresource. After seeing the syntax outlined by the poster above, I gave manually copying the content of the DSC's source folder to the modules/SqlServerDsc root a try, and everything came back gravy fries.
All I needed was to refresh my resource since some new methods came out and couldn't remember how I did it before... This is definitely different.