Introduction

Welcome to this comprehensive guide on the 15 most crucial PowerShell commands that every DevOps professional needs to master. PowerShell is a powerful scripting language and shell developed by Microsoft. It’s a crucial tool for DevOps professionals, allowing them to automate and manage the configuration of systems and servers. Let’s dive in!

1. Get-Command

The Get-Command is used to retrieve all the cmdlets installed on your system. Here’s how you use it:


Get-Command

2. Get-Help

The Get-Help command is used to display information about PowerShell commands and concepts. Here’s an example:


Get-Help Get-Command

3. Get-Process

The Get-Process command is used to get information about the processes running on your system. Here’s how you use it:


Get-Process

4. Stop-Process

The Stop-Process command is used to stop a running process. Here’s an example:


Stop-Process -Name "ProcessName"

5. Set-ExecutionPolicy

The Set-ExecutionPolicy command is used to set the PowerShell execution policy, which determines the conditions under which PowerShell loads configuration files and runs scripts. Here’s how you use it:


Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

6. Get-ExecutionPolicy

The Get-ExecutionPolicy command is used to get the current execution policy. Here’s an example:


Get-ExecutionPolicy

7. Get-Service

The Get-Service command is used to get the status of services on your system. Here’s how you use it:


Get-Service

8. Start-Service

The Start-Service command is used to start a stopped service. Here’s an example:


Start-Service -Name "ServiceName"

9. Stop-Service

The Stop-Service command is used to stop a running service. Here’s how you use it:


Stop-Service -Name "ServiceName"

10. New-Item

The New-Item command is used to create a new item, such as a file or a directory. Here’s an example:


New-Item -Path "C:\temp" -Name "test.txt" -ItemType "file"

11. Remove-Item

The Remove-Item command is used to remove an item, such as a file or a directory. Here’s how you use it:


Remove-Item -Path "C:\temp\test.txt"

12. Set-Content

The Set-Content command is used to write or replace the content in an item, such as a file. Here’s an example:


Set-Content -Path "C:\temp\test.txt" -Value "Hello, World!"

13. Get-Content

The Get-Content command is used to get the content of an item, such as a file. Here’s how you use it:


Get-Content -Path "C:\temp\test.txt"

14. Test-Connection

The Test-Connection command is used to test the connection to a remote system. Here’s an example:


Test-Connection -ComputerName "ServerName"

15. Invoke-Command

The Invoke-Command command is used to run a command on a remote system. Here’s how you use it:


Invoke-Command -ComputerName "ServerName" -ScriptBlock { Get-Process }

Conclusion

And there you have it! The 15 most crucial PowerShell commands that every DevOps professional needs to master. Remember, practice makes perfect. So, don’t hesitate to try these commands out in your own environment. Happy scripting!