Tag Archives: powershell

VMware and Powershell

Broadcom the owner and vendor of VMWare have release a new powershell module, called VCF.PowerCLI instead of the vmware PowerCLI.
If you computer is online, you can installed it with the powershell command Install-Module

Install-Module -Name VCF.PowerCLI

If yours computer/server is not online, you can download it from another computer, and installed it though the manuel way, please look here: https://developer.broadcom.com/powercli/installation-guide

When upgradering from Vmware PowerCLI – Throubleshooting
If you allready have Vmware PowerCLI installed on the computer, you may encounter the following error when trying to install VCF.PowerCLI

PackageManagement\Install-Package : The following commands are already available on this system

This happens because some of the commandlets which are part of the PowerCLI SDK have been moved to other modules. To resolve the conflict you need to add the AllowClobber parameter to Install-Module

Install-Module -Name VCF.PowerCLI -AllowClobber

AllowClobber overrides warning messages about installation conflicts about existing commands on a computer. Overwrites existing commands that have the same name as commands being installed by a module. AllowClobber and Force can be used together in an Install-Module command.

Problems in connection to a Webservice from Windows Server 2016 / 2019

Today, I have this issue, that i could not connect to a webservices, that are hosted by the Danish Tax Service, the URL where: https://emcstest.skat.dk
I got this warning:

Invoke-WebRequest : The request was aborted: Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel.

When running these commands

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
$WebResponse = Invoke-WebRequest "https://emcstest.skat.dk"

No matter what I did. But final I tested the webpage against SSLLabs
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=emcstest.skat.dk
Found these ciphers

I then run these commands:

Enable-TlsCipherSuite TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
Enable-TlsCipherSuite TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
Enable-TlsCipherSuite TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
Enable-TlsCipherSuite TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
Enable-TlsCipherSuite TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
Enable-TlsCipherSuite TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256
Enable-TlsCipherSuite TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

And finally I where able to access the webpage though powershell.

Computer won’t join Azure AD

When going to Settings -> Accounts -> Access work or school, og push the “connect” buttom. I could just see that the popup, asking for my mail address, just popup, but then disapear again very quick.

Starting a powershell with administrative rights, and type in the command

Get-AppXPackage | foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

And let it run, it toke 1-3 minutes to complete, but when it completed i could push the buttom, and the popup show just fine.

Again this is a danish screenshot.


Get Certificate from remote computers

If you need to get all certificates, from a list of remote computers, you can use this script:

$Servers = "kennethdalbjerg-dc01",
           "kennethdalbjerg-dc02",
           "kennethdalbjerg-exch01",
           "kennethdalbjerg-fs01"
 
  $Results = @()
  $Results = Invoke-Command -cn $Servers {
          $Certs = @{} | Select Certificate,Expired
          $Cert = Get-ChildItem Cert:\LocalMachine\My
          If($Cert){
              $Certs.Certificate = $Cert.subject
              $Certs.Expired = $Cert.NotAfter
          }
          Else{
              $Certs.Certificate = " - "
              $Certs.Expired = " - "
          }
          $Certs
  } | Select-Object @{n='ServerName';e={$_.pscomputername}},Certificate,Expired
 
  #Display results in console
  $Results | Sort-Object Expired -Descending
 
  #Save results to CSV file
  $Results | Sort-Object Expired -Descending | Export-Csv -Path C:\users\$env:username\desktop\cert_results.csv -NoTypeInformation -Force
 
  #Open results in new window
  $Results | Sort-Object Expired -Descending | Out-GridView -Title "Final results"

Found groups that a 365 contacts is member of

If you need to found out whitch groups (mailling groups) a contact is member of in Microsoft 365, then you case use these powershell commands:

$getsessions = Get-PSSession | Select-Object -Property State, Name
$isconnected = (@($getsessions) -like '@{State=Opened; Name=ExchangeOnlineInternalSession*').Count -gt 0
If ($isconnected -ne "True") {
Connect-ExchangeOnline
}

$dn = (Get-MailContact "[email protected]").DistinguishedName
Get-Recipient -Filter "Members -eq '$dn'"

Replace [email protected] with yours mail address.

Passler PRTG Windows update Probe says missing updates, but none in windows update

You can run this commands to see what updates, that PRTG windows update probes is warning about.

$searcher = (New-Object -ComObject Microsoft.Update.Session).CreateUpdateSearcher();$searcher.Search("Type='Software'").Updates | Sort-Object -Property Dates -Descending | ft -autosize IsInstalled, MsrcSeverity,title

Compare two folders with Powershell

This script checks first that folders exist, then that filename are the same, and then that file Hash is the same

#$folder1 = "C:\Temp\test"
#$folder2 = "C:\Temp\test2"


if ((Test-Path -Path $folder1) -and (Test-Path -Path $folder2)) {
    echo "The folders exist"
    echo "Folder1: $folder1"
    echo "Folder2: $folder2"
    $sourceFiles = Get-ChildItem $folder1 -Recurse
    $destFiles = Get-ChildItem $folder2 -Recurse
    if (Compare-Object $sourceFiles.Name $destFiles.Name) {
        echo "The folders is not the same"
    } else {
        echo "Check of the folders show us that there have the same content - OK"
        $SourceDocs = Get-ChildItem –Path $folder1 -Recurse | foreach  {Get-FileHash –Path $_.FullName}
        $DestDocs = Get-ChildItem –Path $folder2 -Recurse | foreach  {Get-FileHash –Path $_.FullName}
        if ($SourceDocs.Hash -ne $destDocs.Hash) {
            echo "There are difference in the the files"
            echo "folder1 Hash: $SourceDocs.hash"
            echo "folder2 Hash: $DestDocs.hash"
        } else  {
            echo "The folders are the same!"
        }
    }
} else {
    Echo "One of the folders or both, dosn't exist"
}

Add Exchange management Shell to “normal powershell

Here are a script, that you can include in yours script, to add Exchange management shell, to “normal” powershell scripts.

$StopWatch = [System.Diagnostics.StopWatch]::StartNew()
Function Test-Command ($Command)
{
    Try
    {
        Get-command $command -ErrorAction Stop
        Return $True
    }
    Catch [System.SystemException]
    {
        Return $False
    }
}

IF (Test-Command "Get-Mailbox") {Write-Host "Exchange cmdlets already present"}
Else {

    $CallEMS = ". '$env:ExchangeInstallPath\bin\RemoteExchange.ps1'; Connect-ExchangeServer -auto -ClientApplication:ManagementShell "

    Invoke-Expression $CallEMS
$stopwatch.Stop()
$msg = "`n`nThe script took $([math]::round($($StopWatch.Elapsed.TotalSeconds),2)) seconds to execute..."
Write-Host $msg
$msg = $null
$StopWatch = $null
}

Exchange and TLS problems

Today i have a problem that an exchange will not send mails though TLS, no matter what i do.

I find out that, somehow this exchange servers where creating new send connector, with forcehelo = True.

Witch mean that the Exchange server is using the OLD HELO instead of the EHLO, when talking to other SMTP servers. Setting this to false help. Now the Exchange server send with TLS.

So FORCEHELO=$TRUE breaks TLS.

To see if this is the problem, you can type:

get-sendconnector | select id, forcehelo

To set it to false, for the send connector “Default_OUT” you can run this powershell command:

get-sendconnector -id Default_OUT | set-sendconnector -forcehelo $false

Also you might need to set the TLS certificate to the right certificate. Remember that the certificate need to have the hostname in the certificate. Se more on this link:

https://practical365.com/exchange-server/configuring-the-tls-certificate-name-for-exchange-server-receive-connectors/