Powershell Archives - Squidworks

Plugins4Automate Announces – PowerShell Command Manager Goes Premium

Plugins4Automate announced yesterday that they are now releasing the Powershell Manager for LabTech / ConnectWise Automate as a premium plugin to the RMM platform formerly known as LabTech. Over 600+ users enjoy the efficiency of the PowerShell Command Manager for LabTech and the control they have over each of the MSPs client’s environment. This is a must have plugin for MSPs that have clients using Microsoft products and services.

To read more about Plugins4Automate’s new premium release and to get a special deal for acting quickly please visit the P4A’s announcement blog post. In this post you will find a discount code that you can use to permanently discount the subscription but you need to act fast, it’s for a limited time only.

Chocolatey II Plugin Reviewed

The New Chocolatey II Plugin

Cubert has been going gang busters with the new Chocolatey II plugin and now he is ready to show everyone a little of what he has been doing. So without any further adieu let me introduce to you the new Chocolatey II Plugin for LabTech!

A little history about Chocolatey Nuget

Chocolatey is a package manager for Windows (like apt-get or yum but for Windows). It was designed to be a decentralized framework for quickly installing applications and tools that you need. It is built on the NuGet infrastructure currently using PowerShell as its focus for delivering packages from the distros to your computer. Chocolatey is like apt-get, but built with Windows in mind (there are differences and limitations). For those unfamiliar with APT/Debian, think about Chocolatey as a global silent installer for applications and tools. It can also do configuration tasks and anything that you can do with PowerShell. The power you hold with a tool like Chocolatey is only limited by your imagination! Chocolatey is the brain child of Rob Reynolds, a passionate developer and technology guru.

How is Chocolatey different than Ninite?

Great question, see Chocolatey vs Ninite.

The Chocolatey Plugin for LabTech

Squidworks has harnessed the power of Chocolatey and brought it into the LabTech RMM platform. This allows MSPs to control mass amounts of Windows systems and software applications in a very simple to use interface. In fact, managing software applications could not be easier when using the Chocolatey plugin for LabTech. As you read further I will go over the plugins functions and how you to can harness this power for your MSP.

The Master Control manager

The Master Control manager provides the on and off controls over whole system. The configuration tab of the manager incorporates licensing and the common settings to control auto installs and auto updates.

ViewMenu-Configuration

Approved Apps

This is where you setup your application list, we recently added the ability to set a repository for each application you want to control. This allows a MSP to pick and choose where they get each application. We also provide a “seed” button that will auto populate the list with the most common apps used like Java, Chrome and Adobe.

Global Excludes

You can control who is allowed to install applications at a global level, make quick work of allowing or denying installs across clients. This was completely rewritten after Beta 6 release to be more accurate and faster.

Global Graphs

See what applications are being distributed across your MSP, monitor the versions of Chocolatey installed across you client base and see the current daily install activity.

Now we move to the Client Level

Client Configuration

Here you can include or exclude a client directly or select any set of apps to exclude from the client as a whole.

Client level – System bulk management

Here you can select systems and applications from the approved apps list and manually install them, update or delete them. Everything is reported back to plugin in real time so you get to see what is going on as it happens.

Computer Level Management

Computer Configuration

We provide very granular control over who, what and when applications get installed. You can control down to the PC level if apps get installed and what gets installed to provide a very low level of control for the distribution of applications.

Computer Software

At the computer software level you can do one off installs of any software anywhere for some really extreme flexibility, any applications installed will be included in updates, they will get listed and version checked as part of the maintenance cycles. You are also able to update and delete software at this level making it very convenient for MSPs to manage software . Everything is reported back to plugin in real time so you get to see what is going on as it happens.

Behind the Scenes

Chocolatey Maintenance

This service checks based on your desired settings for systems that need the Chocolatey Application installed and also manages all versioning management of all software installed on PCs

Chocolatey Installer

This service monitors PCs for software installed and or approved and not yet installed and makes sure that the PCs get the new software based on the Maintenance cycles selected.

Chocolatey Updater

This service checks for and executes updates for both the Chocolatey application and all applications installed.

All behind the scenes services will run at least once every 24 hours and can be set to run as much as once per hour by adjusting the controls in the master control.

Now released and available at http://w ww.plugins4labtech.com

Thanks and have a great day!

Cubert

PowerShell – Powershell plugin for LabTech

LabTech PowerShell Plugin

Squidworks has now released their PowerShell plugin for LabTech that will allow you to run basic Powershell commands on the remote computers under management. You no longer need to remote in to a server or workstation to run basic Powershell commands against that system. In this version we added a process to check to see if the computer is an Exchange server 2007,2010 or 2013 and if the system is a supported Exchange server then we will load up the exchange modules when we process your Powershell command so that you can take advantage of all the Powershell commands that the Exchange server provides. If we find the system is not an Exchange server we do not load any extra modules and run in a standard PowerShell.

*New – PowerShell Command Manager

Save and execute complex PowerShell commands with just a mouse click. There is no longer a need to try and remember hundreds of PowerShell commands you have crafted, with Squidworks PowerShell Command Manager you are able to create and save these little jewels so your entire team can use them on any PC console inside of LabTech. (Available on the [View] menu of your LT console.)

Version 1.0.4 available for download

Version 1.0.2 fixes
————————————————–

Fixed bug where pipe key would cause errors (|)
Added Multiline command box

Version 1.0.3 fixes
————————————————–
Added the ability to determine if we are an exchange server and what version, We will load Exchange Powershell modules if Exchange is found for that version.
Setup terminal to grow and shrink with size of window.
Changed colors to better reflect PS terminal
Changed formatting so it mirrors Powershell standard output.

Version 1.0.4
—————————————————

Added PowerShell Command Manager available via the [View] menu in your LT console
Added ability to launch saved powershell commands on any PC console

LabTech – SurfLog Plugin stores browser history for IE, Chrome, Firefox and Safari

Squidwork’s garage is launching another neat plugin that fetches the browsing history from 4 major browsers available on Windows systems. SurfLog collects the browser history for Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari browsers and stores that data inside the LabTech database. The plugin in version 1.0 reads the last 30 days of logs and displays them on the computer console, allows you to launch a new scan and refresh your current view. You can also use the Clear All Logs button to remove all current logs for the computer your viewing or export the data into Excel.

Each column is sort able so you are able to see by Browser Type, URL, Site Title, User Profile or the number of visits to a URL. The plugin comes with one script that collects the data and should be scheduled on widows client groups for once a day.

The Surflog script only grabs the last 24 hours of logs to keep from get to much data that it then cannot import correctly in to the LT database using LT scripting. For this reason you should schedule script to run every 24 hours or less. It will not duplicate any entries into the database so you can run it every hour if you like and only new items will be added to the database. The Surflog script also manages the retention policy and will clear out logs based on the set policy. You can set the policy on the Info Tab of the Client console under the sub tab [SurfLog].

Enable SurfLog on a per client basis

Client Console ->Info Tab -> SurfLog Tab -> Enable Surflog Collection

You can enable Surflog Collection on a per client bases by enabling each client that you would like the collection process to run on. You should schedule the script to run on all windows systems for all systems in labtech then use the enable feature to allow scanner to run or not for each client. The script will validate whether or not to run based on this setting.

SurfLog History Retention

Client Console ->Info Tab -> SurfLog Tab -> Retention Policy

You can set the retention policy for each client between 1 and 90 days, as the collection script runs it will look at the policy for the client and will clear out history based on the retention policy set.

A “Client” must be enabled for any scans on systems under that client to run even if directly scheduled on that system!

SurfLog Key Word Highlight

Client Console ->Info Tab -> SurfLog Tab -> Key Words List

If you place a comma “,” separated list of words in this field the view of each log under this client will highlight those rows where the words show up in the URL, Title and Visit From columns.

We added the ability to surf the links from the history and you can now export the browser history to Excel.

New in version 1.1.0 Cloud hosted LT servers are now fully supported. Just edit the collector script to enable or disable cloud support. See [Grab Surf Logs] script notes for more information.

Get SurfLog 1.1..1

Feel free to donate to our cause if you find this software useful, Help keep our software free.

———New in Version 1.0.5———–
Added new Client Tab with Client level view of all browser histories.

———New in Version 1.0.6———–
Added threading to Excel exports.
Fixed display of Keyword box.
Added UK Time Support to Powershell collector scripts.

——-New in Version 1.1.0 —————-

Rewrote Export function, now really fast and works!
New look and feel
All new graphs and pie charts
Fixed several display issues

—-New in Version 1.1.0.25 —————–
Added support for LT10.5
Plugin now loads script and edfs automatically, no script imports needed
Added auto plugin updater so you will not need to update plugin manually again.

We give a shout out to www.nirsoft.net for their BrowserHistoryView application that provides the CSV creator. Thanks for a great tool.

Cubert 😎

LabTech Plugin -> Office 365 UM keeps improving with new features.

Squidworks Office365 UM Evolves

“New Flash we are now at version 1.8.6 and have added many great features since the writing of this blog, come check out all the new stuff when your done reading.”

Today Version 0.1.7.0 is launching, the 7th release of the first plugin in Labtech to manage Office 365 in the cloud.

GM-O365UM

In the beginning

If you are in the Labtech community then you should know about Cubert’s Office365 Plugin but did you know that it has been evolving?

Back in the beginning our plugin looked a little like this:

In the first version publicly available V 0.0.11 you could only see your users and change their passwords but this was a big step. We were now using remote Powershell CMDs in Labtech scripting and bringing the collected data back into Labtech’s database. This was the first steps to building a plugin for Labtech and getting the data from the cloud into Labtech. We now had a method and a functional process to import data from the cloud and the possibilities opened up for all sorts of new things to come.

It wasn’t long before we were trying new commands and adding some features to our new plugin. Shortly there after we had release a new version that provided the ability to manage some basic permissions like Send As and Send on Behalf As. We started working on added the ability to setup a forwarding email address and full level permissions to allow access for users to other users mailboxes. Version 0.1.4 was released which added the final pieces to our Office365 UM or so we thought.

Moving Day

The Office365 tab’s face was full, no space left to really do anything new but the requests kept coming in for new features. Cubert can you do this was the common theme in the forums. We asked ourselves where are we to put all this new requested functionality? We were out of space and something was going to have to change if we were going to move this plugin any further.

In version 0.1.5.0 we introduced some tabs of our own:

We redesigned the face of the plugin giving us the ability to spread out our functions across different tabs. This gave us the space we needed to really start making this thing preform.We added some new features like adding new users to Office365 , deleting users and also restoring deleted users, converting user mailboxes to shared mailboxes and improving the data collection and error management on the back end.

Our look was getting notice

Cubert heads to Labtech’s Automation Nation 2014 for the second year to see whats in the pipeline in the skunk works at Labtech. Speaking with several people at AN2014 we discovered that there were people using the plugin and had some insight in to how we could make it better and we were determined to do just that.

Our plugin was starting to take shape and the download counts were starting to roll in but with the users comes the problems. The first real wide spread issues started to arise with how Labtech was executing Powershell scripts. This process did not always produce the same results. We found that across platforms that some users were experiencing execution errors with the Data Miner scripts we had designed. We decided a rewrite of the collector was needed, a design that would use the native Powershell application on the PCs instead of the one provided with the Labtech Agent.

We re-crafted the entire data collection process and called it of course “Collect Data” aka “Office 365 Collect Data” . The new method incorporates all user data mining in a single session and adds our newest feature to the Office 365UM Distribution Group Management.

Come and get it

So today we announce our 7Th release of the Office365UM plugin for Labtech available for download now at Squidworks Office365 Plugin for Labtech . We hope you enjoy our products and post here at Squidworks, your experiences with the plugin. This will help drive the development in the direction that is most useful to you and helps us build a better plugin.

Here is what we can do today:

Add, update and delete user accounts and email addresses
Manage Send As, Send on Behalf As and Full Permissions on Mailboxes for other users
Set and delete Forwarding email addresses for users
Restore soft deleted users (30 day limit on retention)
Convert User Mailbox to Shared Mailbox
Set/reset users password
License/unlicense user
Add and delete distribution groups
Add,delete and view group members
Add/Remove groups from Global Address Lists
View License counts and type

Thanks to everyone involved!

Cubert

[LabTech] IPBlock Windows Firewall plugin.

Block entire countries from seeing your PC on the Internet

Squidwork’s garage has released version 1 of their new IPBlock for Labtech RMM. IPBlock is a Country based Network Firewall plugin for Windows based systems. When deployed you can select different countries you do not want to have access to your IP address for any Windows Vista / 7 / 2008 or new system and block them from network access to your PC.

How it works:

The plugin launches a script that goes out and refreshes a complete list of all countries and any IP ranges assigned to those countries. It imports them into the local host and stores them in zone files inside the LTSvc directory. Then based on your selection it applies each zone to the Windows firewall as a rule set.

What does this do for me?

This greatly reduces your Internet footprint and attack surface. Preventing access from countries that have large amounts of attacking systems. It also reduces your ability to be fully exploited by Trojans, Virus or Worms as if infected it makes it much harder to “Phone Home” if the attack comes from a Country you have blocked like “China”.

Version 1 only controls the lists that are applied to your PC it does not turn on or off the actual firewall on Windows. You will need to turn on firewall through the Windows control panel for rules to actually take effect. Then to stop the filtering shut down Windows firewall or go into plugin and select “None” and apply for all rule sets placed in by IPBlock to be removed.

Get Version 1.0.3 here

Enjoy Cubert 😎

Copy members from one Distribution Group to another Distribution Group in PowerShell

As an Exchange and Active Directory administrator you may be asked at some point to make a new distribution group from one or more other distribution groups. Exchange 2010 and PowerShell make this a very easy task. So to get started log in to your exchange server and open your Exchange Management Console.

exchangeManagementshell

Now we need to create the new distribution group by running the following command. Replace (GroupX) with the name of the group you want to create, replace the OrganizationalUnit with the location you want the group to show up in under Active Directory and change the SAM account name to your group name.

New-DistributionGroup -Name “GroupX” -OrganizationalUnit “cornetser.com/Users” -SamAccountName “GroupX” -Type “Distribution”

Next lets list out our existing Distribution Group to see who we will be coping to the new group.

Get-DistributionGroupMember “Florida”

Now we need to add the Distribution Group Members from “Florida” distribution group to the new GroupX distribution group.

Get-DistributionGroupMember “Florida” | Get-Mailbox | Add-DistributionGroupMember “GroupX”

To add more groups to the GroupX distribution groups rerun the same command as above with new group name to copy from in the “Get-DistributionGroupMember” section. Any duplicate members will error out as a duplicate and will be skipped as the list is copied so you will have a nice clean list once completed.

Enjoy,

Cubert 8)