String Theory

As I was doing my daily RSS feed review I came across this great post @ http://nickapedia.com/2010/07/12/show-and-tell-first-vsphere-plugin-for-wordpress/ where he describes his vSphere WordPress plugin.  This excellent plugin allows you to display the stats for your vSphere/ESX environment and I knew this was a must have after completing my lab setup. You can see the plugin in action on the right hand bottom-most widget on my blog.

I have been wanting to set up my own home lab for a very long time. Unfortunately home projects and such have always been higher on the priority list so I hadn’t much luck getting it started. Thankfully I have been able to build my home lab with many thanks to my wife for delaying some projects.

The purpose of my lab is really simple. I want the ability to simulate many different environments for whatever project I am working on. I don’t need to support full sized production environments, such small base environments to operate against. For example one of my first projects will be setting up a XenApp server to develop some scripts against.

The obvious choice for the environment is for it to go virtual. I had toyed with the idea of using XenServer for my hypervisor since that is what I work with at work, but honestly having to pay for the memory optimization took it out of consideration. Memory is probably going to be the limiting factor in my environment. Thin Provisioning for local disks was another huge factor in my decision.

So now it was on to the hardware. I thought about buying a premade system, but decided I could get more bang for my buck by building my own and honestly a whole lot more fun.  It started with the case and power supply which I found on NewEgg on sale. The rest of the components I purchased from Micro Center.  It was the 4th of July and once I got started I didn’t want to have to wait to get building.

I overlooked the NIC card and realized after building it that the onboard NIC card wasn’t supported by ESXi so I ordered one from NewEgg and completed my system.

Currently I have a DC/DNS/DHCP server, a SQL server, a WSUS server, and a file server which serves as my lab infrastructure.

If you are interested here is the list of components in my Lab server and pictures from the building.

Today at work  it was brought to my attention that XenServer 5.6 dropped support for Windows XP 64 bit. I had only just recently started work with XenServer on a new project. This is a big deal for us because one of our VDI XenDesktop pilots is for a statistical application running on Windows XP 64 bit on XenServer 5.5.

Today at the end of the day the project manager was mentioning that that was a bad decision and even mentioned utilizing VMware as our backend for that environment.  So this evening I started doing some research and came to realize something interesting. XenServer 5.5 didn’t support 64 bit either.  So XenServer 5.6 doesn’t support 64 bit XP, but neither does 5.5.

Interestingly enough we have been having some problems with these images so now we have to wonder if it is because there is a reason Citrix doesn’t support it. If you are running Windows XP 64 bit images on your XenServers I would love to hear from you.

For this month’s meeting of the Atlanta PowerShell User Group I demoed my Windows PowerShell profile and I promised I would post it online. So here it is.

 

 

<#=============================================================================
Script Name:     Universal Profile
Created On:      05/22/2009
Author:          Mark E. Schill
File:            profile.ps1
Usage:           PS> . profile.ps1
Version:         1.2
Purpose:         Serves as a PowerShell Profile that can be used on multiple systems
Requirements:    <NONE>
Last Updated:    06/05/2010
History:
         1.2 06/05/2010 - Many Numerous changes.
                 1.1 10/11/2009 - Converted to strictly 2.0 and updated layout
              1.0 05/22/2009 - Initial Revision

         ** Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License **
=============================================================================#>

<# This must be configured on systems where this script is run
 New-PSDrive -name Scripts -psprovider FileSystem -root <Location of Scripts Folder> -Description "Scripts Folder"
 . Scripts:\Profiles\profile.ps1
#>

# Main Function is just like the C# Main function. I use it to be be able to put functions last.
function Main
{

  # Grab some system Information to be displayed
  $PSVersion = [System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo]::GetVersionInfo("$PSHome\Powershell.exe").FileVersion
  $IPAddress = @( Get-WmiObject Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration | Where-Object { $_.DefaultIpGateway } )[0].IPAddress[0]
  $Cert = Get-ChildItem -Path Cert:\CurrentUser\my -CodeSigningCert

    # Set up general aliases
  New-Alias -Name "Edit" -Value "edit-file" -force

  # Add to Module path so I can just do "ipmo Module"
  if ( !($Env:PSModulepath.Contains($(Convert-Path Scripts:\Core\Modules\Manual)) ))
  {    $env:PSMODULEPATH += ";" + $(Convert-Path Scripts:\Core\Modules\Manual) }

  # Import my auto modules.
  Get-ChildItem $(Convert-Path Scripts:\Core\Modules\Auto) | Where-Object {$_.PsIsContainer} | %{ Import-Module $($_.FullName) -Force }

  ## We also want to add our scripts directory to the path
  $ENV:PATH += Get-Item Scripts:\Core\Functions | ? { $_.PsIsContainer } | % {";$($_.FullName)" }
  $ENV:PATH += Get-ChildItem Scripts:\Core\Functions\* | ? { $_.PsIsContainer } | % {";$($_.FullName)" }

  # Machine Based Rules
  switch -regex ( $env:COMPUTERNAME)
  {
    ".+"
    {    }
    "L186404"
    {      Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue }
    "EINSTEIN"
    {
      Add-PSSnapin "NetCmdlets" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
      Add-PSSnapin "PowerGadgets" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
    }
  }

  # Host based rules
  switch ( $Host.Name )
  {
    "PowerShellPlus Host"
    {
      $Color_Label = "Cyan"
      $Color_Value_1 = "Green"
      $Color_Value_2 = "Yellow"
      $HostWidth = $Host.UI.RawUI.WindowSize.Width
    }
    'Windows PowerShell ISE Host'
    {
      $Color_Label = "DarkCyan"
      $Color_Value_1 = "Magenta"
      $Color_Value_2 = "DarkGreen"
      $HostWidth = 80

            Import-Module ISEPack 

            $PSISE.options.FontName = "Consolas"

      # watch for changes to the Files collection of the current Tab
      register-objectevent $psise.CurrentPowerShellTab.Files collectionchanged -action {
        # iterate ISEFile objects
        $event.sender | % {
          # set private field which holds default encoding to ASCII
          $_.gettype().getfield("encoding","nonpublic,instance").setvalue($_, [text.encoding]::ascii)
        }
      } | Out-null
    }
    default
    {
      $Color_Label = "Cyan"
      $Color_Value_1 = "Green"
      $Color_Value_2 = "Yellow"
      $HostWidth = $Host.UI.RawUI.WindowSize.Width

      if ( $env:PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE -eq 'AMD64')
      {        $NPP = "${env:ProgramFiles(x86)}\Notepad++\Notepad++.exe" }
      else
      {        $NPP = "$env:ProgramFiles\Notepad++\Notepad++.exe" }
      if (Test-Path $NPP) { Set-Alias -Name Edit-File -Value $NPP -Force } 

      # Initialize PowerTab
      & $(Convert-Path scripts:\Core\Includes\PowerTab\Init-TabExpansion.ps1) -ConfigurationLocation $(Convert-Path scripts:\Core\Includes\PowerTab)
    }

  }

  Record-Session # Start Session Recording
  Clear-Host

    $PreviousColor = $Host.UI.RawUI.ForegroundColor

  # Display relevant information
  Write-Host "ComputerName:`t`t" -ForegroundColor $Color_Label -nonewline
  Write-Host "$($env:COMPUTERNAME)" -ForegroundColor $Color_Value_2
  Write-Host "IP Address:`t`t" -ForeGroundColor $Color_Label -nonewline
  Write-Host $IPAddress -ForeGroundColor $Color_Value_2
  Write-Host "UserName:`t`t" -ForegroundColor $Color_Label -nonewline
  Write-Host "$env:UserDomain\$env:UserName" -ForegroundColor $Color_Value_2
  Write-Host "PowerShell Version:`t" -ForegroundColor $Color_Label -nonewline
  Write-Host $PSVersion -ForegroundColor $Color_Value_2
  Write-Host "Code Signing Cert:`t" -ForegroundColor $Color_Label -nonewline
  Write-Host $Cert.FriendlyName -ForegroundColor $Color_Value_2

  Write-Host "Snapins:`t`t" -ForegroundColor $Color_Label -NoNewline
  $StartingPosition = $Host.UI.RawUI.CursorPosition.X
  Write-Host "".PadRight(30,"-") -ForegroundColor $Color_Label
  Get-PSSnapin | Format-Wide -autosize | Out-String -Width $( $HostWidth -$StartingPosition -1 ) -stream | Where-Object {$_} | %{ Write-Host $($(" "*$StartingPosition) + $_) -foregroundColor $Color_Value_1} 

  Write-Host "Modules:`t`t" -foregroundcolor $Color_Label -noNewLine
  $StartingPosition = $Host.UI.RawUI.CursorPosition.X
  Write-Host "".PadRight(30,"-") -ForegroundColor $Color_Label

  Get-Module | Format-Wide -AutoSize | Out-String -Width $( $HostWidth -$StartingPosition -1 ) -stream | Where-Object {$_} |  %{ Write-Host $($(" "*$StartingPosition) + $_) -foregroundColor $Color_Value_1}
  Get-Module -ListAvailable | Format-Wide -Column 3 | Out-String -Width $( $HostWidth -$StartingPosition -1 ) -stream | Where-Object {$_} |  %{ Write-Host $($(" "*$StartingPosition) + $_) -foregroundColor $Color_Value_2} 

  Write-Host "Functions:`t`t" -foregroundcolor $Color_Label -noNewLine
  $StartingPosition = $Host.UI.RawUI.CursorPosition.X
  Write-Host "".PadRight(30,"-") -ForegroundColor $Color_Label
  Get-ChildItem Scripts:\Core\Functions\* -Recurse | Select-Object Name | Format-Wide -AutoSize | Out-String -Width $( $HostWidth -$StartingPosition -1 ) -stream | Where-Object {$_} |  %{ Write-Host $($(" "*$StartingPosition) + $_) -foregroundColor $Color_Value_1}  

  $Host.UI.RawUI.ForegroundColor =$PreviousColor
  Write-Host ""
  Write-Host ""

  # This should go OUTSIDE the prompt function, it doesn't need re-evaluation
    # We're going to calculate a prefix for the window title
  if(!$global:WindowTitlePrefix) {
    $id = [System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()
    $p = New-Object System.Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal($id)
    if ($p.IsInRole([System.Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole]::Administrator))
    {
      $global:WindowTitlePrefix = "PoSh (ADMIN) -"
    } else {
      $global:WindowTitlePrefix = "PoSh - "
    }
  }

  $LogicalDisk = @()
  gwmi Win32_LogicalDisk -filter "DriveType='3'" | % {
    $LogicalDisk += @($_ | Select @{n="Name";e={$_.Caption}},
    @{n="Volume Label";e={$_.VolumeName}},
    @{n="Used (GB)";e={"{0:N2}" -f ( ($_.Size/1GB) - ($_.FreeSpace/1GB) )}},
    @{n="Free (GB)";e={"{0:N2}" -f ($_.FreeSpace/1GB)}},
    @{n="Size (GB)";e={"{0:N2}" -f ($_.Size/1GB)}},
    @{n="Free (%)";e={if($_.Size) { "{0:N2}" -f ( ($_.FreeSpace/1GB) / ($_.Size/1GB) * 100 )}else{"NAN"} }} )
  } 

  $Host.UI.RawUI.ForegroundColor = $Color_Value_2
  $LogicalDisk | format-table -AutoSize | out-string
  $Host.UI.RawUI.ForegroundColor = $PreviousColor

  Get-SystemUptime
  Write-Host

  cd scripts:\

}

#Record all Powershell activities
function Record-Session
 {
  $MyPath = "$((Get-PSDrive Scripts).Root)\_Transcripts"
  if ( ! (Test-Path $MyPath ) ) { mkdir $MyPath > $null }
  $ComputerName = $env:ComputerName
  $Date = Get-Date -Format "yyyy-MM-dd"
  switch ( $Host.Name )
  {
    "PowerShellPlus Host"
    {      Start-Transcript -path "$MyPath\$ComputerName-$Date.log" -ea silentlycontinue }
    'Windows PowerShell ISE Host'
        {
            # PowerShell ISE does not support transcription
        }
        default
    {      Start-Transcript -path "$MyPath\$ComputerName-$Date.log" -append -ea silentlycontinue }

  }
}

function prompt
{

  Write-Host "$([char]0x0A7) " -NoNewline -ForegroundColor $Color_Label
  Write-Host ([net.Dns]::GetHostName()) -NoNewline -ForegroundColor $Color_Value_1
  Write-Host ' {' -NoNewline -ForegroundColor "Red"
  Write-Host (shorten-path (pwd).path) -NoNewline -ForegroundColor $Color_Label
  Write-Host '}' -NoNewline -ForegroundColor "Red"
  return ' '
}


function shorten-path([string] $path) {
  $loc = $path.Replace($HOME, '~')
  # remove prefix for UNC paths
  $loc = $loc -replace '^[^:]+::', ''
  # make path shorter like tabs in Vim,
    # handle paths starting with \\ and . correctly
  return ($loc -replace '\\(\.?)([^\\]{3})[^\\]*(?=\\)','\$1$2')
} 

function Get-SystemUptime ($computer = "$env:computername") {
  $lastboot = [System.Management.ManagementDateTimeconverter]::ToDateTime("$((gwmi  Win32_OperatingSystem -computername $computer).LastBootUpTime)")
  $uptime = (Get-Date) - $lastboot
  Write-Host "System Uptime for $computer is: " -NoNewline -ForegroundColor $Color_Value_2
  Write-Host $uptime.days -NoNewline -ForegroundColor $Color_Label
  Write-Host " days " -NoNewline -ForegroundColor $Color_Value_2
  Write-Host $uptime.hours -NoNewline -ForegroundColor $Color_Label
  Write-Host " hours " -NoNewline -ForegroundColor $Color_Value_2
  Write-Host $uptime.minutes -NoNewline -ForegroundColor $Color_Label
  Write-Host " minutes " -NoNewline -ForegroundColor $Color_Value_2
  Write-Host $uptime.seconds -NoNewline -ForegroundColor $Color_Label
  Write-Host " seconds" -ForegroundColor $Color_Value_2
}

# Call "Main" Function
. Main

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I recently gave a presentation on the Citrix XenApp cmdlets for the Atlanta Citrix User Group.  For the presentation I wanted to show a real world example of the cmdlets in use. I decided to take a script that I wrote in July of 2007 ,which is still in use today, and convert it to use the new XenApp PowerShell cmdlets.  Shown below is the original script.

The purpose of the script is to automatically create a published desktop for our XenApp servers as they are built.  It uses MFCOM to perform the work.  One of the pain points in this script is that I had to actually copy the icon from an existing published desktop. This is a problem that I don’t have with the cmdlets.

Code block

#=============================================================================
#= Script Name:      Citrix Admin Desktop Publishing Script
#= Created On:       07/11/2007
#= Author:           Mark E. Schill
#= File:             Publish-Desktop.ps1
#= Usage:
#= Version:          1.0
#= Purpose:          Publishes an Admin Desktop on the server it is run from.
#= Requirements:       Must be run on a Citrix server in the same farm
#= Last Updated:     07/11/2007
#= History:
#=                   07/11/2007 1.0 - Initial Revision
#=
#=                        Copyright (C) 2007 Mark E. Schill
#==============================================================================

function Publish-Desktop( [string]$ServerName)
{
    $CPSReferenceApp = New-Object -comOBject MetaFrameCOM.MetaFrameApplication
    $CPSReferenceApp.Initialize(3, "Applications/Admin/Desktops/WMT13-CTX-DC1 Desktop")
    $CPSReferenceApp.LoadData($true)
    $CPSReferenceIcon = $CPSReferenceApp.WinAppObject.IconObject

    $ServerName = $ServerName.ToUpper()
    $CPSFarm = New-Object -ComObject MetaFrameCOM.MetaFrameFarm
    $CPSFarm.Initialize(1)
    $CPSApp = $CPSFarm.AddApplication(3)
    $CPSApp.AppName = "$ServerName Desktop"
    $CPSApp.Description = "Admin Desktop for Remote Administration"
    $CPSApp.ParentFolderDN = "Applications/Admin/Desktops"
    $CPSApp.PNFolder = "Admin\Desktops"
    $CPSApp.WinAppObject.DefaultInitProg = ""
    $CPSApp.WinAppObject.DefaultWorkDir = ""
    $CPSApp.WinAppObject.DefaultWindowColor = 4 # 32 Bit
    $CPSApp.WinAppObject.DefaultWindowType = 6 # MFWINWindowPercent
    $CPSApp.WinAppObject.DefaultWindowScale = 95 # 95%

    $CPSApp.WinAppObject.PNAttributes = 8
    $CPSApp.WinAppObject.SetIconBitmaps( $CPSReferenceIcon.IconMaskSize, $CPSReferenceIcon.IconMaskBitmap, $CPSReferenceIcon.IconDataSize, $CPSReferenceIcon.IconDataBitmap)
    $CPSApp.AddUser( 1, "CDC", 4, "CTX-Admins")
    $CPSApp.AddUser( 1, "CDC", 4, "CTX-Support")
    $CPSApp.SaveData()
    $CPSAppBinding = New-Object -ComObject MetaFrameCOM.MetaFrameAppSrvBinding
    $CPSAppBinding.Initialize(6,$ServerName,$CPSApp.DistinguishedName)
    if ($CPSAppBinding)
    {
        Write-Host "Publishing"$CPSApp.BrowserName"on $ServerName" -foregroundcolor Green
        $CPSApp.AddServer($CPSAppBinding)
        $CPSApp.SaveData()

    }
    else
    {
        Write-Host "Unable to create App Binding" -foregroundcolor red
    }

}

Publish-Desktop("$env:COMPUTERNAME")

Shown below is the new “script”. As you can see it is actually a one-liner if you take out the function stuff. Also I don’t have the icon issue because it automatically creates the correct icon.

Code block

function Publish-Desktop( [string]$ServerName)
{
	New-XAApplication -ApplicationType ServerDesktop -DisplayName "$ServerName Desktop" -FolderPath "Applications/Admin/Desktops" -Description "Admin Desktop for Remote Administration" -ClientFolder "Admin\Desktops" -WindowType "95%" -ColorDepth TrueColor -Accounts "$ServerName\Administrators" -Servernames $Servername
}

I am one of the guest judges for the Scripting Games 2010 occurring right now at http://2010sg.poshcode.org and http://blogs.technet.com/heyscriptingguy/. I am currently working on the Beginner Event 4 which asks the user to read the Environment Variables to get the number of processors in the machine.

This evening I am finding myself in constant conflict with my own principals as I grade these entries. In accordance with the spirit of the Scripting Games, I am grading the entries based on those guidelines including “Anything that goes beyond the bare minimum requirements of the scenario”, but it is taking all of my strength not to give them one star and write, “Dude, you know you can do that with one line.” These are games after all, so maybe I can convince the Scripting Guys next year to do the “2011 Scripting Reality Challenges”. What do you think?

Yours truly,

Mark

As promised here is my PowerPoint presentation and demo code for the presentation I gave at the Atlanta Citrix User Group titled “Managing XenApp with Windows PowerShell”

Presentation: Managing XenApp with Windows PowerShell

Demo Code: Demo.ps1

 Atlanta Citrix User Group – www.acug.org
Tuesday, April 27th
Topics of Discussion

Mark Schill, User Group Member, - Powershell Scripting XenApp

Mark is the WebMaster for the ACUG.org website and Charter Member of the current rendition of the Atlanta Citrix User Group.  Mark has been implementing and supporting Citrix Products in the Atlanta area for years and is a prolific PowerShell scripter.  MFCOM is out and Powershell is in, so come listen to Mark give the User Group a foundation of PowerShell scripting on XenApp.

Marcia Orea, Citrix Systems Senior SE – Whats new with XenApp 6.0 – Overview, Demo, and Q&A

Marcia Orea is a Senior Southeast SE for Citrix Systems and this will be her first presentation at an ACUG meeting.  Come hear Marcia tell the User Group whats new in XenApp 6.0!

The User Group meetings provide members with an opportunity to share and learn about common issues and utilization of Server Based Computing  technology.  Additional segments include troubleshooting tips, best practices, enterprise solutions, technology trends, vendor presentations and upcoming activities of interest. 

When: Tuesday,  April 27, 2010
          11:00am – 1:30 pm
          Lunch will be provided (BBQ) and sponsored by Citrix Systems, inc

Where: Citrix Systems Support Office
           2001 Westside Pkwy
           Suite 260
           Alpharetta, GA 30004

Registration:  Our ACUG Website is down so to register for this event please send an e-mail to events@ACUG.org or simply reply to this message.  Registration enables us get a count of who will be attending so we can get an accurate food and drink order in.

A successful User Group is a partnership between all members

I am a follower, or rather, I attempt to follow the GTD Methodology. The method is based on the principle that you need to take all the tasks that are floating around in your mind and record them in an external system. That way, your mind is free from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done. No more of the “I know I needed to do something, but I can’t remember what it was.”

Originally I was using Remember the Milk (RTM) to track all of my tasks. It is a great website and they have clients for everything. But there were a few things that I didn’t like. RTM didn’t support task statuses and the font used in the iPhone application was huge. Now that may not sound like a big deal, but when you are trying to go through your task list and can only see 5 or so tasks on one screen you have to do a lot of scrolling.

I did some searching and settled on a site called ToodleDo. Its a great site and has lots of features. I won’t go into them, but please take a look and see for yourself. After I got it all set up with all of my personalized folders and tags and other such settings I realized that they didn’t have any  PowerShell interfaces. They have plenty of other connections listed on their site including a couple of .NET libraries.

I almost always has a PowerShell window open on whatever computer I am on at the time so I thought a PowerShell module would be perfect. Especially since a lot of my tasks are related to PowerShell. And I wanted the experience and practice of creating a “production class’” modules that others would benefit from.

I started on this module and have been working on it for a couple of months off and on. When I got finished with the function to add a task to the system I decided it was ready enough for others to start looking at it and created a CodePlex project.

I am affectionately calling it “ToodlePosh” (I couldn’t come up with a better name) and it is located at http://toodleposh.codeplex.com/. Please feel free to take a look at it and play with it.

Last night we had the inaugural meeting of the Atlanta PowerShell User Group at the New Horizons Computer Learning Center in Sandy Springs. It was an excellent first meeting and we had really good attendance. I think we even got someone new excited about PowerShell.

Entertainment was provided by Jonathan Walz and his son with excellent Yoyo demonstrations.

A special hats off to Glenn Sizemore (@glnsize) for driving all the way from Augusta (2 hours one way) just to attend the meeting. Now that is dedication.

A tremendous thank you to Janis at New Horizons. Janis and New Horizons were very accommodating and provided us with a great place to hold our meeting. They have a great facility so if you are looking for a training or certification center in Atlanta give them a ring.

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday April 20th 2010 from 6-8 pm at the same location so mark it on your calendar.