I'm trying to wrap my hand around DSC in PowerShell 4.0, what's possible, and what's not. I've installed xWebAdministration Module.
Could I create a website in IIS, then somehow export it to the a .ps1 file (I think in the MOF format). For example, txWebAdministration has a sample called xWebAdministration\Examples\Sample_xWebsite_NewWebsite.ps1. Could I use an existing website to build a file like this? Or do I have to type everything in manually?
I'm basically trying to jump in and try some things without reading from end-to-end. I was hoping Get-DscConfiguration would somehow read my IIS configuration and create such a file.
For example, in SQLServer, you can create a database and tables using the graphical user interface of SQL Studio Management Studio (SSMS), then export a script to re-create those same tables on another server.
Is such a concept possible with DSC, or am I missing the boat.
There is nothing like this at the moment.
Keep in mind DSC is very new and quite sparse. The DSC Resource Kit is created by people at Microsoft, but isn't supported or all that official.
You could write a script to parse an existing web site and export it to a configuration in a PS1, or even directly into an MOF (it's a text file too), but there is nothing close to this functionality existing at the moment.
Your best bet is probably to type it out manually at this time.
There is a tool that creates a DSC configuration from an existing machine called GuardRail but I think it will not support the experimental xWebAdministration Module. As briantist said, it wouldn't be too difficult to create a powershell script that uses WebAdministration commandlets to produce a DSC configuration.
In fact a workmate asked me the same question today and I'm considering writing one. If you I'll update my answer in a few days with a script that will do this.
Related
we are currently using a powershell script (~800 lines of code) to deploy an asp.net website, setting up the databases and modifying some xml nodes / text files. Can we use the wix toolset to do that? I am not very familiar with it. Or is it possible to copy our installation folder to the target system and executing the powershell file on it, using the wix toolset?
Yes, WIX can handle this.
You can start with this tutorial that includes enabling feature in IIS, installing website and change config files.
Just had a similar question / problem. My problem was that I couldn't get a powershell script working. I wrote a guide over here that migth help you. Feel free to ask if you need further assistance! :)
I have a DSC I am creating for web server configuration. My website will be using HTTPS, meaning that I have to have a certificate in a store. I don't see any modules designed to do this, so I was wondering how I could run regular Powershell functions in a DSC but keep the good parts of the DSC.
My workflow is as follows:
1 . Check if certificate exists
If cert doesn't exist in the store, add it.
If the cert does exist, grab the the Thumbprint to use in the xWeb xWebsite.BindingInfo.MSFT_xWebBindingInformation.CertificateThumbprint property.
As of now, I've got the code written to do the following actions, but I would still like to make use of the [DependsOn] functionality found in DSCs so I can handle any errors involved with creating/accessing the certificate.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
https://serverfault.com/a/638926/236470
Use Microsoft's xCertificate module (with the xPfxImport resource) for this purpose.
Full disclosure: I wrote the original version of this resource (it's open source in Microsoft's repo now and has since had other contributors).
To answer your original question, you would use the Script resource to run arbitrary code without creating your own resource.
I am proposing an idea for a final year project that is basically a virtual environment. I would be using Citrix XenServer in conjunction with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Citrix netscaler to make the server accessible over the web. I would also be hosting a website on the server that Windows is on.
What I was wondering is, would it be possible to trigger the execution of a script on the server from the web page. So basically a user comes along, goes to my website, registers their details. a csv file is then produced based on the details that are input. Then I was wondering is there a way to trigger the execution of a powershell script that would use the csv file to set up the user in Active directory. The powershell script itself is simple its just how I would get it to run is another thing.
Yes it is possible.
PowerShell lets us create graphical interfaces with the .NET winforms. With it, we can build front end to manage our scripts. It's a really nice feature, and tools like AdminScriptEditor make it pretty easy.
I have found this link for your reference - PowerShellOnWebPage
You can tweak/create the script as per your need.
Let me know if this helps.
Thanks!
I have a Websphere Application Server v8.0, and my job requires me to change the location of my JDBC data source to different values to test in different environments. I traditionally would do this via the admin console and change the settings via the Resources > JDBC > Data sources section, but I'd like to write a script to change these settings. When I run the admin console, where do the settings get stored? I can run the console vis-a-vis the Servers tab in Eclipse (Rational Application Developer) or by navigating to localhost:9044, but I don't know where the settings are stored - which I'd need to write said script.
Can anybody help me out?
From what I remember of WebSphere Application Server, the settings are ultimately persisted to the file system - however you shouldn't be changing them this way because application server config is a messy and complicated business and by directly changing settings you risk destroying your app server.
I'd recommend checking out this redbook, particularly Chapter 8 which describes how you can configure your app server with scripts. Also I seem to recall plans to display the equivalent scripting commands in the admin console.
If it helps, I had a quick look locally and found a reference to my JDBC data source in "resources.xml" located within the websphere directory at...
<server profile root>\config\cells\<aNodeCell>\nodes\<aNode>\servers\<aServer>
In the past I've used xml config to read values for convenience, but not often to update. Instead I have made use of some of the jython script options available and can echo Jim's response to check out the options there in case there is something that would be a viable alternative.
Edit:
There is another link that may be of interest Configuring data access with wsadmin scripting. I've not used this particular feature of wsadmin myself but it does appear to show promise at first glance.
If you want to write a script, then rather than looking at file system write a proper jython script, which will do your modifications in the similar way as you would do it via console.
To make writing script easier you can use:
Command assistance in the console - the Help portlet on the right shows last invoked command in jython
Script library, which already provides some scripts - Automating data access resource configuration using wsadmin scripting
And basic scripting commands - Configuring data access with wsadmin scripting
In one of the projects our team is working on, we are trying to make an automated deployment system for an existing desktop application. In order to do that we need to understand how InstallShield installs the application to begin with.
We have access to the InstallShield manifest, but there is an OCX file that we cannot figure out how to install manually (without InstallShield). This particular OCX file is set to 'Extract COM Information'.
Here's a screenshot:
The other OCXs in this application are self-registering, so they can be registered with Regsvr32.exe. But the OCX we are having problems with cannot be registered in that fashion.
How would one manually install an OCX file that is set to 'Extract COM Information' in an InstallShield manifest?
RegSvr32.exe calls the LoadLibrary API to load your DLL and then invokes the DllRegisterServer entry point inside your DLL. The code inside that function does the actual COM registration. If RegSvr32 is failing, that typically means a dependency of your DLL is missing or invalid.
InstallShield does all of this along with some really low level bit hacking to virtualize all of this and then harvest it. An old article on the subject is:
Spying on Registry Entries
InstallShield doesn't actually use this technique per say ( they have several techniques, most of which is not documented and various filters and transform engines to clean up the data ). If you are just looking for a way to do it without InstallShield, then look at Windows Installer XML's "Heat" command line tool. This can "harvest" COM metadata into WxS XML elements.
Also WiX is open source so if you are really curious you could go looking at their code.
As Christopher mentioned, InstallShield extracts COM information from your .ocx by seeing what it registers when invoked similarly to regsvr32.exe will invoke it. Its various forms of redirection (for capturing purposes) have the added benefit of working around several potential permissions problems while the file is registering in your build environment. However if I'm not missing the point of your question, it's "why doesn't regsvr32.exe your.ocx work on the target machine?"
This is a bit of a stab in the dark, as you haven't included enough information. While missing dependencies can cause this, I'm going to guess you only see this failure on Windows Vista/Server 2008 or higher. If this is the case, there's a good chance your application is trying to write to registry keys that are protected by Windows Resource Protection (WRP), or is being tripped up by a per-user typelib registration problem.
When a poorly behaved self-registration routine encounters WRP, it attempts to write to a registry key it lacks permission to modify, then fails the entire registration. I'm uncertain what happens to the keys it wrote before that point, but all ones after it definitely never make it to the machine. You should be able to confirm whether this is the case with a tool like Process Monitor.
What do you do if this is the case? Well, you can stick with an extraction approach like that of InstallShield (which you say you want to leave). You can fix the file to not attempt to write to protected keys (which you say you cannot modify). Or you might be able to use the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) to shim things, but I don't see how you can generally do that downstream. Generally speaking, I would recommend fixing the file, or continuing to use a working approach.