Quick one today, this is probably the third or fourth time in the last few months I’ve needed to parse multiple files searching for a string, and each time I spend a little bit more time thinking about how to quickly do it than I’d like. So here it is for future reference, a…

I recently needed to add a few Cisco IOS XE routers into a fairly old RANCID 2.3.8 install. I found out rather quickly this wasn’t going to work. Older versions of RANCID force use of the 3des-cbc cipher, while the newer IOS XE versions don’t support this. This cipher mismatch is…

Most of us would be familiar with the normal syntax of calculated properties when used to change or add properties when piping an object through . In short, a calculated property is a hashtable containing the name of the property to return, and an expression in the form of a…

A little known feature of NTFS is something called Alternate Data Streams, or ADS. Originally introduced for compatibility with Apple’s HFS, it allows for storage of metadata for files residing on the filesystem. A simple example is some of the content in the Summary tab when…

I’ve been doing some AWS study over the past week, primarily with a focus on networking and external connectivity. Below are some notes, this is not a how to or a tutorial, but rather architecture fundamentals. Regions and Availability Zones AWS is broken up into several Regions…

Often we need to query a group of computers (using WinRM for example) to obtain some data or run certain commands. This can be tricky as some devices may be offline, so a simple loop usually isn’t enough. Storing the computer list in an array and removing a device once it has…

Some years ago Microsoft announced the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), which gave Windows 10 users the ability to run a Linux distro directly from their Windows install without the need for a VM. I remember being somewhat dismissive and thinking to myself “why would anybody…

When writing modules we need our functions to be in psm1 files instead of the usual PowerShell ps1 files. While the only difference between the two is the extension, it is far more cumbersome to develop directly with the psm1 files as they cannot be directly executed. A simple…