Over the years I did create, find, copy, paste, quite a few lines of PowerShell code. Some of which I’m turning into re-usable functions and collecting in a module, creatively called “Tom’s Admin Kit” or TAK. I hope you find it useful. I try to credit the sources for the stuff that I just copied off of the interwebs, even though I don’t actually remember all of them.

Pester

As written before, Pester is a unit testing framework for PowerShell code. So one can write simple tests to verify the code actually does, what it is supposed to do. Not all functions are covered by tests, yet, but I try to be better at that. The existing tests can be found in the GitHub repo for the module.

CI&D: GitHub and AppVeyor

I read a lot about this continuous integration and delivery and I thought it would be nice to play with some of the involved tools myself. So I created a small-ish release pipeline/workflow for this module using GitHub, AppVeyor and the PowerShell Gallery. Here is how it works: When a new commit is pushed to GitHub, AppVeyor picks up the latest code and deploys it to a test machine. It then runs all the pester tests and, upon success, publishes the module to the PowerShell Gallery.

The tests that should be run to verify the code, are defined in the appveyor.yml file in the GitHub repository.

test_script:
    - ps: |
        $testResultsFile = ".\TestsResults.xml"
        $res = Invoke-Pester -OutputFormat NUnitXml -OutputFile $testResultsFile -PassThru
        (New-Object 'System.Net.WebClient').UploadFile("https://ci.appveyor.com/api/testresults/nunit/$($env:APPVEYOR_JOB_ID)", (Resolve-Path $testResultsFile))
        if ($res.FailedCount -gt 0) {
            throw "$($res.FailedCount) tests failed."
        }

Just like the deployment task, that will be invoked if the tests passed.

deploy_script:
  - ps: |
      Install-PackageProvider -Name NuGet -Force
      $manifest = Join-Path -Path $pwd -ChildPath "TAK\tak.psd1"
      (Get-Content $manifest -Raw) -Replace("1\.0\.0\.\d{1}", $env:APPVEYOR_BUILD_VERSION) | Out-File $manifest
      Publish-Module -NugetApiKey $env:psgkey -Path ($PublishPath = Join-Path -Path $pwd -ChildPath TAK) -Confirm:$false

Help

Most functions include comment-based help and a HelpUri that links to the online version of the help article. Just add the -Online parameter when getting help, like in the following example:

Get-Help Test-TCPConnection -Online

A full list of available help files can be found here: TAK

Download & Source for

The Module is available on the PowerShell Gallery, you can install or download it using the following commands:

Install- -Name  -Scope CurrentUser

Save- -Name  -Path <Path>

And you can find the source on GitHub: tomtorggler

More information about the PowerShell Gallery can be found in the FAQ

Give it a try, and, if you spot a bug or have an idea for improvement, just create in a pull request.

So long, Tom