Scribd
Upload
71 views

02 The Basics of PowerShell

PowerShell is a command-line shell and scripting language that provides system administration capabilities. It allows users to automate repetitive tasks like checking server security logs, saving them as HTML files, and distributing them to admins. PowerShell recognizes many native Windows commands and also supports some Linux/Unix commands. It includes cmdlets that are PowerShell-specific commands for performing tasks like getting help or viewing available commands. Learning PowerShell provides benefits like increased efficiency through automation and is important for system administration roles.

Uploaded by

gaston
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
71 views

02 The Basics of PowerShell

PowerShell is a command-line shell and scripting language that provides system administration capabilities. It allows users to automate repetitive tasks like checking server security logs, saving them as HTML files, and distributing them to admins. PowerShell recognizes many native Windows commands and also supports some Linux/Unix commands. It includes cmdlets that are PowerShell-specific commands for performing tasks like getting help or viewing available commands. Learning PowerShell provides benefits like increased efficiency through automation and is important for system administration roles.

Uploaded by

gaston
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

The Basics of PowerShell

The Basics of PowerShell


1. What is PowerShell? Look at the word POWER-SHELL. You may ask what is a shell?
A shell is a user interface that gives you access to the operating system.
2. What can I use PowerShell for? PowerShell allows you to write scripts and use
commands to automate repetitive tasks. For example:
You could check the security logs on one or a number of server’s, save that log file to a
server as an HTML file and the Admins that work for you could check the log file every
morning anywhere in the world to verify that your servers are not being attacked by
hackers.
You can work with Active Directory, registry, WMI, backup your server, run tasks in the
background while you perform other tasks.
3. PowerShell is built into many products. Microsoft IT products, VMware, Citrix.
4. Do you have a Linux, Unix or strictly Windows client background? You may ask, what
commands from those O/S will PowerShell recognize?
PowerShell recognizes many windows native commands. Let’s check it out.
Open the ISE version of Powershell in Administrator mode
Type Explorer – Yep that works
Type Ipconfig /all
CHKDSK
CLS
Dir
MKDIR C:\ps2

Cmdlets are PowerShell specific commands. So how do we get a list of CMDlets?


Type get-command
Here we see a list of aliases -we’ll get to those later
And Functions – Functions are written in PowerShell’s own scripting language. You can
create your own Functions in PowerShell.
CMDlets are native PowerShell commands that are written in a .net language
BTW you can get-help on any of these aliases, functions or cmdlets.
Let’s grab a command and get some help
And there’s your help for the Get-variable cmdlet

1
What about UNIX or Linux commands
Type LS – Displays the contents of a specified location.
PWD – Returns the current working directory name.
MAN - Gives help on the get-service command.
CAT -path c:\sec.txt
and there is our security log that we saved from a previous lecture
Q: Is there a command that I can type to give me a list of aliases which is another name for a
command that points to the real command that PowerShell recognizes?
A: get-alias
Checkout the list of aliases, I am sure you will see some that you recognize. Take a little time to
experiment with familiar commands.
Q: Why would Microsoft developers include commands from these other operating systems.
A: So, people from the Unix/Linux world would be able to sit down open up PowerShell and find
commands that they are familiar with. Granted there are differences between the various tools,
but I think this encourages others to dig in and hopefully discover the power of PowerShell.
3. In this course we will concentrate mainly on using PowerShell with Windows 10 and
Windows server 2016.
4. You may say, well Robert you really haven’t convinced me yet - why would I want to go
to the trouble to learn PowerShell?
Let me ask you this:
If you were the hiring manager in charge of hiring all your system admins, who would
you rather have on your team. A person that manually performs his everyday tasks
using the basic tools. Or an Admin that takes seconds to perform the same tasks in an
automated fashion. The answer is obvious. So welcome to PowerShell this is the future
for administrators.

You might also like