A learning guide to get you started with PowerShell DSC. About This Book Create flexible and maintainable deployments using DSC configuration scripts that stand the test of time. Explore the core architecture, concepts, and practices in depth. Learning PowerShell DSC is a step-by-step guide that shows you how to start using and taking advantage of PowerShell DSC along with configuring and deploying applications. Who This Book Is For If you are a system administrator, developer, or engineer and are responsible for configuration management and automation, then this book is for you. IT professionals who wish to learn PowerShell Desired State Configuration for the efficient management, configuration, and deployment of systems will also find this book useful. What You Will Learn Explore PowerShell Desired State Configuration and activities around it, including the need for configuration management and abstraction. Create reusable DSC configurations and debug/ troubleshoot configuration files. Learn about the PowerShell DSC architecture with the help of push-and-pull management and workflows. Define DSC configuration scripts and data files and push DSC configuration files remotely and locally. Validate DSC Pull Server install and register target nodes with a DSC Pull Server. Learn about DSC Cross Platform and install PowerShell on Linux and macOS along with real-life DSC uses and different types of deployment. In Detail The main goal of this book is to teach you to configure, deploy, and manage your system using the new features of PowerShell v5/v6 DSC. This book begins with the basics of PowerShell Desired State Configuration, covering its architecture and components. It familiarizes you with the set of Windows PowerShell language extensions and new Windows PowerShell commands that make up DSC. Then it helps you create DSC custom resources and work with DSC configurations with the help of practical examples. Finally, it describes how to deploy configuration data using PowerShell DSC. Throughout this book, we will be focusing on concepts such as building configurations with parameters, the local configuration manager, and testing and restoring configurations using PowerShell DSC. By the end of the book, you will be able to deploy a real-world application end-to-end and will be familiar enough with the powerful Desired State Configuration platform to achieve continuous delivery and efficiently and easily manage and deploy data for systems. Style and approach The purpose of this book is to introduce readers to the powerful PowerShell Desired State Configuration platform to achieve continuous delivery, efficient management, and the easy deployment of data for systems.

Get started with the fundamentals of PowerShell DSC and utilize its power to automate deployment and configuration of your servers About This Book Create flexible and maintainable deployments using DSC configuration scripts that stand the test of time Explore the in depth details of the core architecture, concepts, and practices used by PowerShell DSC A step-by-step guide that shows you how to start using and taking advantage of PowerShell DSC Who This Book Is For This book is intended for system administrators, developers, or engineers who are responsible for configuration management and automation and wish to learn PowerShell Desired State Configuration for efficient management, configuration and deployment of systems and applications. What You Will Learn Understand configuration management and why you need it Craft flexible, reusable, and maintainable configuration scripts for thousands of servers Create custom DSC resources to manage any application or server setting Apply configuration data to deploy applications to different environments Utilize DSC push deployments to test your configuration scripts and custom DSC resources Install, configure and use DSC pull servers Run a Windows MSI package Deploy a website In Detail Windows PowerShell is a task-based command-line shell and scripting language designed especially for system administration. PowerShell DSC is a new management platform that enables you to deploy and manage configuration data for software services and manage the environment in which these services run. This book begins with an overview of the basics of PowerShell DSC by covering the architecture and components of the Desired Sate Configuration. It will then familiarize you with the set of PowerShell language extensions and new PowerShell commands. It will help you understand and create DSC configurations with the help of practical examples, and to create DSC custom resources for your custom applications. Finally, you will learn to deploy a real world application using PowerShell DSC. By the end of the book, you will have better knowledge about the powerful Desired State Configuration platform, which helps you to achieve continuous delivery, and efficient management and easy deployment of data for systems. Style and approach This book is an in-depth guide to using PowerShell DSC, full of real-world experiences and best practices using PowerShell DSC. The topics are explained and build on one another other to provide a holistic learning experience. At the end, all the features learned will be used to create a real world application deployment using DSC.

Learn the fundamentals of PowerShell to build reusable scripts and functions to automate administrative tasks with Windows About This Book Harness the capabilities of the PowerShell system to get started quickly with server automation Learn to package commands into a reusable script and add control structures and parameters to make them flexible Get to grips with cmdlets that allow you to perform administration tasks efficiently Who This Book Is For This book is intended for Windows administrators or DevOps users who need to use PowerShell to automate tasks. Whether you know nothing about PowerShell or know just enough to get by, this guide will give you what you need to go to take your scripting to the next level. What You Will Learn Learn to verify your installed version of PowerShell, upgrade it, and start a PowerShell session using the ISE Discover PowerShell commands and cmdlets and understand PowerShell formatting Use the PowerShell help system to understand what particular cmdlets do Utilise the pipeline to perform typical data manipulation Package your code in scripts, functions, and modules Solve common problems using basic file input/output functions Find system information with WMI and CIM Automate IIS functionality and manage it using the WebAdministration module In Detail Windows PowerShell is a task-based command-line shell and scripting language designed specifically for system administration. Built on the .NET Framework, Windows PowerShell helps IT professionals and power users control and automate the administration of the Windows operating system and applications that run on Windows. PowerShell is great for batch importing or deleting large sets of user accounts and will let you collect a massive amount of detailed system information in bulk via WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation). Getting Started with PowerShell is designed to help you get up and running with PowerShell, taking you from the basics of installation, to writing scripts and web server automation. This book, as an introduction to the central topics of PowerShell, covers finding and understanding PowerShell commands and packaging code for reusability, right through to a practical example of automating IIS. It also includes topics such as installation and setup, creating scripts, automating tasks, and using Powershell to access data stores, registry, and file systems. You will explore the PowerShell environment and discover how to use cmdlets, functions, and scripts to automate Windows systems. Along the way, you will learn to perform data manipulation and solve common problems using basic file input/output functions. By the end of this book, you will be familiar with PowerShell and be able to utilize the lessons learned from the book to automate your servers. Style and approach A practical learning guide, complete with plenty of activities, examples and screenshots.

Desired State Configuration (DSC) is a powerful configuration management platform that makes it easier than ever to perform cross-platform configuration management of your infrastructure, whether on-premise or in the cloud. DSC provides the management platform and Application Programming Interface (API) that can be used with any programming language. Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration Revealed will take you through this new technology from start to finish and demonstrates the DSC interfaces through Windows PowerShell. DSC allows you to manage target devices by simply declaring what state you want them to be in, using new declarative language extensions, rather than writing detailed instructions to get them into that state. This makes continuous delivery in Windows easier than ever before. In an environment where changes and deployments are happening all the time, DSC makes the necessary adjustments to the system so you don’t have to. Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration Revealed starts with an overview of the configuration management features in Windows, followed by a discussion of the architecture of DSC and its components. You’ll then explore DSC’s built-in features and resources, followed by some of the different methods provided for delivering configuration information within your ecosystem, and learn about configuration monitoring and reporting. In the latter part of the book, you’ll find out how to get more power out of DSC by writing your own custom DSC resources, including a range of useful examples, and the book concludes with vital information on deploying and troubleshooting DSC in a production environment, along with some expert tips and tricks you might find useful along the way. Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration Revealed is your one-stop guide to this new technology and how it can change your working life for the better.

Learning PowerShell is a custom-built, handcrafted, painstakingly curated book designed to get you from total PowerShell newbie to confident PowerShell user in as little as four weeks. This book assumes no prior knowledge, perfect for non-developers and GUI addicts who recognize that PowerShell is the future but need a good bit of handholding to achieve mastery. It is also a simple guide for the hundreds of thousands of PowerShell users who have not attained the level of PowerShell knowledge that they really need. With Learning PowerShell at your side, you will see that you don't have to be a developer to use PowerShell and you don't need to be a scripting wizard to derive value from integrating PowerShell into your daily administrative activities. The book is a learning resource that covers every topic worth discussing for a PowerShell beginner, with a depth of explanation unparalleled by any book currently on the market. With this book, you don't have to have a lot of time to learn the language and you can begin applying what you master almost immediately. Even skeptics of PowerShell, and command lines in general, will come away with a renewed sense of respect for the language and ideas on how to put it to use.

Scripting gurus Jones and Hicks teach readers PowerShell from the ground up. They cover its underlying technologies, flexible scripting language, and enough of the .NET Framework to be effective in PowerShell scripting. (Computer Books)

Your hands-on guide to Windows PowerShell scripting fundamentals Expand your expertise--and teach yourself the fundamentals of Windows PowerShell scripting, including features available in Windows PowerShell 5. If you are an IT professional, power user, or consultant, you’ll get the guidance, exercises, and code you need to master core techniques for automating Windows setup, deployment, and management. Discover how to: Run cmdlets and command-line utilities Administer Windows-based servers and desktops with built-in cmdlets Use providers to access external information Write and run scripts from the Windows ISE Create functions that are easy to maintain Build standardized environments with profiles Automate Windows systems with WMI, CIM cmdlets, and remoting Automate Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Debug scripts and handle errors Run commands that survive interruptions Use Desired State Configuration (DSC) to manage software services and their environments Get powerful new modules from PowerShell Gallery About You This book is for: IT professionals and power users who want to get productive with Windows PowerShell, including new features in Windows PowerShell 5 Windows system administrators who want to be more efficient and productive Anyone pursuing Windows PowerShell certifications No experience with Windows PowerShell or other scripting technologies necessary