YouTube content to Twitter posts with PowerShell & Time Triggered Azure Function

YouTube content to Twitter posts with PowerShell & Time Triggered Azure Function https://ridicurious.com/2018/05/29/youtube-to-twitter-posts-using-azure-functions/

Batch file to create backups of files to remote network paths using date and time stamps

Robocopy example rem batch file to create backups of files to remote network paths using date and time stamps FOR /f "tokens=1-5 delims=/- " %%a in ('date /t') DO SET XDate=%%d%%b%%c FOR /f "tokens=1-5 delims=/- " %%a in ('date /t') DO SET XSDate=%%d%%b FOR /f "tokens=1-2 delims=: " %%a in ('time /t') DO SET XTime=%%a%%b Echo "%XSDate%\%XDate%\%XDate%_%XTime%" set PW=Somepass1@@ set USR=Install rem set SOUPATH=Internal set SOUPATH=Dev_Local rem set LAB=DSCLIVE set LAB=DSCLAB set ROLE=DC1 net use M: \\%Lab%%Role%\c$\%SOUPATH% %PW% /user:%usr% Robocopy C:\Dev_Local M:\Backup\Code_Backup\%Lab%_%XDate%_%XTime%\%Lab%%Role% *.* /S /Z /XF *.EXE *.MSI *.ISO net use m: /delete

How to Create Encrypted Zip or 7z Archives on Any Operating System

How to Create Encrypted Zip or 7z Archives on Any Operating System https://www.howtogeek.com/203590/how-to-create-secure-encrypted-zip-or-7z-archives-on-any-operating-system/

Tweaks to Write-LogEntry

Tweaks to Write-LogEntry that was posted to Twitter by Trevor Sullivan @pcgeek86

His original PowerShell code:

function Write-LogEntry {
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param (
    [string] $Message,
    [string] $Severity
)
$CallStack = Get-PSCallStack
$LogMessage = '{0} {1}: {2}: {3}' -f (Get-Date -Format u), $CallStack[1].FunctionName, $Severity, $Message
Add-Content -Path c:\temp\logfile.log -Value $LogMessage
}
function LogTester {
 [CmdletBinding()]
    param (
    )
    Write-LogEntry -Message Testing1 -Severity Information
    Write-LogEntry -Message Testing2 -Severity Warning
    Write-LogEntry -Message Testing3 -Severity Error
}
LogTester

My tweaks to the original PowerShell code:

Function Write-LogEntry {
    [CmdletBinding()]
    param (
    [string] $Message,
    [string] $Severity,
    [string] $Step
)
$CallStack = Get-PSCallStack
$LogMessage = '{0},{1},{2},{3},{4},{5}' -f $env:computername,((get-date).ToUniversalTime()), $CallStack[1].FunctionName, $Severity, $Message, $Step
Add-Content -Path c:\temp\logfile.csv -Value $LogMessage
}
function LogTester {
 [CmdletBinding()]
    param (
    )
    Write-LogEntry -Message Testing1 -Severity Information -Step 10
    Write-LogEntry -Message Testing2 -Severity Warning -Step 20
    Write-LogEntry -Message Testing3 -Severity Error -Step 55
}
LogTester

I did the following:

Changed the format of the date to UTC that was readable by Excel
Changed the output to a .CSV format and adding commas to the -f
Added the computername as the first entry in the text log
Added a parameter Step to the log

When I am consuming logs, lots of logs, I like tools like Excel to slice, dice, sort, and filter the data for me in a visual way.

When I write logging functions, I like to know what step tripped the log entry. So in my applications I set $Step to a number that is incremental from the last step I used this variable.

For example I set my step to 10 for the variable initially at the beginning of the application. Then at the start of each major piece of logic where I could trip the logging I increment the step by 10.

The steps then help me narrow down where in code the logging got tripped.

A future version of this could be to load the log into a SQL Table and also account for multiple applications writing to the same log.

Thank Trevor !!

Scaling DSC - Desired State Configuration in PowerShell

How to Scale DSC - Desired State Configuration in PowerShell

This series of posts will cover my ideas of how to scale DSC beyond just a few servers or VM's.

DSC is a fantastic tool for deploying consistent servers / VM's

Make the servers cattle, not pets.

But when you have to scale this DevOps process to 10's, 100's, or 1000's of servers, writing code for each server and configuration does not scale.

Data Driven

PowerShell can help generate the DSC code necessary to scale and make DSC data driven.

Why Data Driven?

A common deployment scenario is you want to create a small scale SharePoint farm of one SQL Server, one front end web server, and one App server.

The server for SQL has to be created and configured first, then web and App.

Each server type has different requirement for creation and configuration.

Using DSC manually, you have to remember the order of deployment and many attributes for each server type.

DSCDB can treat this farm as a collection (example Collection_SPsmall). Multiple collections can be created or cloned into a collection library.

It can know in what order the servers have to be deployed, and almost all the attributes that need to be passed to DSC to create MOFs including credentials.

In order to deploy using DSCDB, you only need the name of the server set (example SPsmall_1) and optionally a few additional parameters. The server set uses the collection (Collection_SPsmall) to know the farm configuration.

The deployment can then run either sequentially or in parallel.

The Scaling DSC Series

#1 Creating a DSCDB


A DSCDB is a simple set of tables in a database that is used to capture attributes about each server that is needed for deployment.

#2 Populating a DSCDB

There are four ways to populate the database:

• Importing an Excel file of server names and attributes
• Importing a text file of server names
• Importing server names from AD - Active Directory
• Manually update the SQL tables

#3 Deploying using DSCDB

This post will talk about how to deploy servers in a automated fashion using the DSCDB.

#4 Future Features for DSCDB

This post will discuss potential features for future releases.

Conclusion

This database is not a CMDB but a database specifically designed for deployment using DSC.

All the source code and documentation for this series will be in Github.

Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 released with Windows Container support http://t.co/Pl15JJRtbd #container #winserv

Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 released with Windows Container support http://t.co/Pl15JJRtbd #container #winserv

— Dusty R (@nakedpowershell) August 20, 2015

from Twitter https://twitter.com/nakedpowershell

How BitTorrent could let lone DDoS attackers bring down big sites http://t.co/yCMMDIDWJB #infosec #security

How BitTorrent could let lone DDoS attackers bring down big sites http://t.co/yCMMDIDWJB #infosec #security

— Dusty R (@nakedpowershell) August 17, 2015

from Twitter https://twitter.com/nakedpowershell