PowerShell for sharepoint 2010 administrators. This session was done at SharePoint Saturday India Online event

1. Getting Started with PowerShell for
SharePoint 2010 administrators
Ravikanth Chaganti

2. About me
• A lead engineer at Dell and a Windows PowerShell
MVP
• Developer of
– PSCodePlex
– PSRemoteFileExplorer
– Remote File Explorer PowerPack
– BITS File Transfer PowerPack
– PSSPUtils – PS SharePoint 2010 Utils on Codeplex
• Author of
– Free eBook - Layman’s guide to PowerShell 2.0 remoting
– SharePoint 2010 PowerShell Cheat sheet (powerGui.org)
– Several others in pipe
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth

3. Agenda
• Part 1: Introduction to PowerShell
• Part 2: Introduction to PowerShell for
SharePoint 2010
• Q & A
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth

4. Why PowerShell?
• Understand with an example:
– Calculate the size of a folder
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth
DOS Batch PowerShell
@echo off
setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set /a value=0
set /a sum=0
FOR /R %1 %%I IN (*) DO (
set /a value=%%~zI/1024
set /a sum=!sum!+!value!
)
@echo Size is: !sum! k
$size=0;gci C:scripts -rec | % {
$Size+=$_.Length};$size/1KB

5. PowerShell Console
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth

6. PowerShell ISE
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth
Tab Completion
Extensible object model
Built-in debugger
Color coded syntax

7. PowerShell Cmdlets
 Pronounced as command-let
 A lightweight command
 an instance of .NET framework classes
 Use verb-noun pairs
◦ Get-Verb to list all approved verbs
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth

8. Discover PowerShell
• Master these cmdlets
– Get-Command
– Get-Help
– Get-Member
• About_Topics; example:
– Get-Help about_variables
– Get-Help about_Operators
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth

9. PowerShell for SharePoint
• Replaces STSADM for command-line
management
– STSADM still ships for backward compatibility
• 500+ PowerShell cmdlets
– Programs -> Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products
-> SharePoint 2010 management Shell
– Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell
• Cmdlets have SP noun prefix
– Get-Command –Noun SP*
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth

10. PowerShell can do more
• More than what central administration can do
• Examples
– Backup using SQL snapshots
– Configuring RBS
– Configuring request throttling
– Several others
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth

11. Things to know: Permissions
• Must have SharePoint_Shell_Access role on
SharePoint databases (both content &
configuration)
• Must be a member of WSS_ADMIN_WPG local
group on all farm servers
• Use Add-SPShellAdmin to give a user above
permissions
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth

12. Things to know: Object Disposal
• Some cmdlets return huge objects and take up
large amount of memory
• Objects get disposed at the end of pipeline
– Not true for objects stored in a variable
• Use a built-in cmdlet as far as possible
– Get-SPWeb –Identity http://sp2010demo | Set-SPWeb –Description “This is my demo site”
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth

13. Things to know: Object Disposal
• Use Dispose() when not using built-in cmdlets
• SharePoint 2010 provides cmdlets to
workaround this
– Start-SpAssignment
– Stop-SPAssignment
– Objects get associated to an assignment store and
get disposed when Stop-Assignment is called
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth

14. Things to know: Execution Policy
• By default, PowerShell does not allow scripts to run
• Change policy with Set-ExecutionPoilicy
• Policy Settings
– Restricted (default) – scripts will not execute
– Unrestricted – scripts can execute. Unsigned scripts will
prompt user to execute
– Bypass (developer mode) – scripts can execute, no user
prompting to execute
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth

15. • PowerShell Console
• PowerShell ISE
• PowerGUI AdminConsole
• PowerGUI ScriptEditor
• PowerWF
• PowerShell Plus
Tools for the job

16. Books & Resources
• PowerShell for Microsoft SharePoint 2010
Administrators – By Niklas Goude & Mattias Karlsson
• SharePoint 2010 PowerShell cmdlets cheat sheet –
PowerGUI.Org
• PowerShell in action, 2nd edition – Bruce Payette
• Windows management framework (PowerShell v2)
download for Windows Server 2008, Vista, XP and
Windows 2003
– http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968929
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth

17. Q & A
http://ravichaganti.com/blog Ravikanth@Ravichaganti.com @ravikanth