PSWCMA - PowerShell Windows Configuration Management Agent

Introduction

Powershell module for applying DSC configurations automatically with Git

The target is to fetch all Active Directory distribution groups with a specific prefix fromt the current client. If a connection could be established to the AD the agent writes all found groups in a cache file, which is written in json. If not, the client will read the cache. If there wasn't any connection yet and the AD is offline, it will only get the baseline config, if there is one configured. After the fetching of the distribution group, the agent clones or pull the configurations from a git repository. Then on the basis of the group names the specific dsc configurations will be applied.

The agent will run periodically (implemented with task scheduler from windows).

Important: The folders in the git repo have to have the same name as the group names.

Requirements

• WMF 5.0
• Active Directory
• Git Repository
  • Repository has to be public

Getting started

Install PSWCMA using PowerShell Gallery

The module can be installed with the PowerShell Gallery: https://www.powershellgallery.com The install command is:

Install-Module -Name PSWCMA

Installing PSWCMA using git

Or it can be cloned with git:

git clone git@github.com:ITS-Unibas/PSWCMA.git

But when cloned with git, the repository must be cloned or at least copied in one of the default module directories. To get the module directories:

$ENV:PSModulePath -split ';'

Configure the agent

The agent will be configured with Initialize-CMAgent. Basic example:

Initialize-CMAgent -Path "C:\path\to\a\desiredfolder" -Git "https://git-server/yourgitrepo.git" -ActiveDirectory "FQDN.OF.DOMAIN" -LDAPUserName "domain\user" -LDAPPassword "password" -Filter "Prefix-Of-DistributionGroups*" -Basline "Name-of-your-baseline-config"

You can setup test clients, which should test changed or new configurations. To do so configure your Test AD group und Test branch name (branch name of your git repo):

Initialize-CMAgent -Path "C:\path\to\a\desiredfolder" -Git "https://git-server/yourgitrepo.git" -ActiveDirectory "FQDN.OF.DOMAIN" -LDAPUserName "domain\user" -LDAPPassword "password" -Filter "Prefix-Of-DistributionGroups*" -Basline "Name-of-your-baseline-config" -TestGroup "Name-of-your-TestGroup" -TestBranchName "testing"

The password will be saved as securestring. This will install the prequisits and configure the task scheduler.

Run installing configuration command

You can also trigger the installation of the configuration manually by running:

Install-Configurations

Remove the PSWCMA

To remove the components of the PSWCMA run:

Uninstall-CMAgent

This command only removes the parts, which were created while the initialization of the PSWCMA. To remove the module itself run:

Uninstall-Module -Name "PSWCMA"