Category: Powershell

The first dbatools commands that I looked at are: –

Get-LastGoodCheckDb

Get-LastBackup

These commands do exactly what they say on the tin. Pretty standard stuff for DBAs but what’s cool is how we can use Visual Studio Code to quickly and easily check that all our databases are being backed up and have a recent (good) CHECK DB.

I’m going to setup two scripts to run the dbatools commands against my SQL instances via Visual Studio Code Tasks.

Read on to see how Andrew did it.

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Checking For Instant File Initialization

Published 2017-07-06 by Kevin Feasel

Klaas Vandenberghe shows how to use Powershell to determine whether Instant File Initialization is turned on:

Sometimes we want to apply a filter to an array or other collection of objects, but keep both the items that pass the filter and those that fail it. Instead of cycling twice through the collection, there’s a one-step method.

Instant File Initialization is a privilege assigned in the local security policy. Here’s some explanation by MSSQL Tiger Team.
There’s a lot to tell about it, but I’m not going to do that here. Let’s just assume it’s a good thing to assign that privilege to the account with which the SQL Service runs.

Klaas explains how to use Powershell filtering with Where-Object and the Where method for people new to Powershell, and then uses this to figure out if IFI is enabled.

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Spell Checking With Visual Studio Code

Published 2017-07-06 by Kevin Feasel

Andy Levy shows how to create a custom dictionary for a programming language in Visual Studio Code:

But as you can see from the marketplace page there, by default this plugin doesn’t know PowerShell. In my user settings file settings.json, I added PowerShell to the cSpell.enabledLanguageIds section so it’s always recognized:

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"cSpell.enabledLanguageIds": [

        "c",

        "cpp",

        "csharp",

        "go",

        "javascript",

        "javascriptreact",

        "json",

        "latex",

        "markdown",

        "php",

        "plaintext",

        "powershell",

        "python",

        "text",

        "typescript",

        "typescriptreact",

        "yml",

        "powershell"

    ],

And with that, VSCode was giving me green squiggles under lots of words – both misspelled and not. Code Spellchecker doesn’t understand PowerShell in its default setup, it doesn’t have a dictionary for it. Just to get things started, I added a cSpell.userWords section to my settings.json and the squiggles started disappearing.

It’s an interesting post, so read the whole thing.

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Test The DBATools Beta

Published 2017-07-05 by Kevin Feasel

Chrissy LeMaire wants you to test the beta of dbatools:

Before the official release of bagofbobbish to master and the PowerShell Gallery, we need help finding bugs. Then, we’ll need some time to resolve those bugs. Hopefully this can be done before community members show off dbatools at a few key SQLSaturdays around the world this Saturday, July 8th.

We would really appreciate it if you would download the beta from GitHub and (in a test environment) see if you can find anything that doesn’t work as expected.

If you find any bugs, please file a report on GitHub. You can also reach out to us in the Slack channel.

Currently, there aren’t any webpages for the commands listed in this post, but all commands have help, so when you need help, simply type Get-Help commandName -Examples or Get-Help commandName -Full.

Get testing. There are a lot of new commands, so if you haven’t checked out dbatools in a while, give it a go. Also, congrats to Rob Sewell for his newly minted MVP status.

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Creating A Powershell Module

Published 2017-06-30 by Kevin Feasel

Rob Sewell has a two-parter. First, he looks at the SQL Server Diagnostics API:

The Diagnostic Analysis API allows you to upload memory dumps to be able to debug and self-resolve memory dump issues from their SQL Server instances and receive recommended Knowledge Base (KB) article(s) from Microsoft, which may be applicable for the fix.

There is also the Recommendations API to view the latest Cumulative Updates (CU) and the underlying hotfixes addressed in the CU which can be filtered by product version or by feature area (e.g. Always On, Backup/Restore, Column Store, etc).

I have written a module to work with this API. It is not complete. It only has one command as of now but I can see lots of possibilities for improvement and further commands to interact with the API fully and enable SQL Server professionals to use PowerShell for this.

This alone is quite interesting. But then Rob shows how to turn this into a module, complete with tests:

I have been asked a few times what the process is for creating a module, using Github and developing with Pester and whilst this is not a comprehensive how-to I hope it will give some food for thought when you decide to write a PowerShell module or start using Pester for code development. I also hope it will encourage you to give it a try and to blog about your experience.

This is my experience from nothing to a module with a function using Test Driven Development with Pester. There are some details missing in some places but if something doesn’t make sense then ask a question. If something is incorrect then point it out. I plan on never stopping learning!

There are many links to further reading and I urge you to not only read the posts linked but also to read further and deeper. That’s a generic point for anyone in the IT field and not specific to PowerShell. Never stop learning. Also, say thank you to those that have taken their time to write content that you find useful. They will really appreciate that.

If you’re interested in developing professional-grade Powershell modules, this is a great starting point.

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Terminating Errors In Powershell

Published 2017-06-29 by Kevin Feasel

Adam Bertram explains terminating versus non-terminating errors in Powershell:

Non-terminating errors are still “errors” in PowerShell but not quite as severe as terminating ones. Non-terminating errors aren’t as serious because they do not halt script execution. Moreover, you can silence them, unlike terminating errors. You can create non-terminating errors with the Write-Error cmdlet. This cmdlet writes text to the error stream.

You can also manipulate non-terminating errors with the common ErrorAction and ErrorVariable parameters on all cmdlets and advanced functions. For example, if you’ve created an advanced function that contains a Write-Error reference, you can temporarily silence this as shown below.

Adam also shows how to convert a non-terminating error into a terminating error in your script.

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Bacpacing In Azure

Published 2017-06-28 by Kevin Feasel

Derik Hammer shows how to use a bacpac file to deploy an existing database to Azure SQL Database:

The recommended method for working with Azure is always PowerShell. The Azure portal and SSMS are tools there for your convenience but they do not scale well. If you have multiple databases to migrate, potentially from multiple servers, using PowerShell will be much more efficient. Scripting your Azure work makes it repeatable and works towards the Infrastructure as Code concept.

In this demonstration, the below steps will be used.

Export the bacpac file to a local directory with sqlpackage.exe.
Copy the bacpac to Azure Blob Storage with AzCopy.exe
Use the PowerShell AzureRM module and cmdlets to create an Azure SQL Database from the bacpac file.

Derik shows the point-and-click way as well as the Powershell way.

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Remote Installation Of Powershell On SQL Server 2017

Published 2017-06-28 by Kevin Feasel

Tracy Boggiano has a script to install the SQL Server 2017 Powershell module via Powershell remoting:

Once the file is copied to the server locally you can use run the below script from your local machine to install SQL Server PowerShell 2017 for all user to use on the server. The Get-CMSHosts function can be found on my blog here. You will need to download PsExec from here and extract to location on your local computer and provide the path.

NOTE: This is a hotfix that requires a RESTART. Be careful in PRODUCTION.

Click through for the script.

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PoshBot

Published 2017-06-27 by Kevin Feasel

Warren Frame shows off ChatOps with PoshBot:

We’re going to cover the basics to get up and running with PoshBot:

Create a Slack bot

Create a PoshBot configuration

Run PoshBot as a service

Write a PoshBot plugin

Use PoshBot

This might seem like a lot of work, but the configuration and service are a one time thing – Writing plugins is just like writing PowerShell functions and modules!

One of my mad scientist co-workers has put together a similar bot and it tells our DBA team how servers are doing. It’s quite useful for system reconnaissance, particularly when all you have is a phone and a trouble ticket.

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Performance Comparison: Comparing Column Differences

Published 2017-06-23 by Kevin Feasel

Shane O’Neill has a column difference showdown:

The original post for this topic garnered the attention of a commenter who pointed out that the same result could be gathered using a couple of UNION ALLs and those lovely set-based EXCEPT and INTERSECT keywords.

I personally think that both options work and whatever you feel comfortable with, use that.

It did play on my mind though of what the performance differences would be…what would the difference in STATISTICS IO, TIME be? What would the difference in Execution Plans be? Would there even be any difference between the two or are they the same thing? How come it’s always the things I tell myself not to forget that I end up forgetting?

This may not be the most important thing to test, but it does show you a technique.

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