Category Archives: Powershell

Force Powershell functions to array, ALWAYS, and ensure no zero / empty results

September 2, 2016 JosL 1 Comment

One thing that annoys me in Powershell is it’s tendency to automatically cast arrays with 1 object to a normal object, thus you can’t do $array[0] anymore or use .Count (unless using PS v3+).

You can’t really ensure your methods/functions always return a proper array, they might be empty or they might have been converted to an object. Here’s how to force anything into an array, always, and to make sure there are no ’empty’ objects that mess up the array’s count property:

[Array]$result = @(myFunctionCall | where {$_})

[Array] and @() make sure that $result becomes an array, while | where {$_} ensures that there are no empty values 🙂

Powershell, Sharepoint Online

Auditing your Sharepoint Online site collections

June 22, 2016 JosL Leave a comment

As, generally, we want to know what goes on in our environment, I like to enable Auditing wherever I can. Sharepoint is a more and more important resource where we store our data. Auditing can be very useful if files dissapear, auditors need specific information, or worse, cryptolockers rename all your files.

As setting audit logging through the interface is well documented, I wanted to share the Powershell way of doing this, assuming you’ve already installed the Sharepoint Client Components:


[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint.Client") | Out-Null [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime") | Out-Null

$Context = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext("INSERT YOUR SITE URL HERE")
$secPassword = ConvertTo-SecureString "YOUR PASSWORD" -AsPlainText -force
$Credentials = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials("YOUR LOGIN",$secpassword)
$Context.RequestTimeout = 16384000
$Context.Credentials = $Credentials
$Context.Load($Context.Web)
$Context.Load($Context.Site)
$Context.ExecuteQuery()

#set audit logging for the site collection to ALL
$Context.Site.Audit.AuditFlags = "All"
$Context.Site.Audit.Update()
$Context.ExecuteQuery()

OneDriveMapper, Powershell

OnedriveMapper v2.34 released!

June 15, 2016 JosL Leave a comment

Version 2.34 of OneDriveMapper has been released.

Now attempts to automatically add the required trusted site entries
Attempts to automatically start the WebDav service if not running and user is local admin
A number of small checks and automatic corrections for user faulty input / setup
from now on all versions will be released as .ps1 instead of .zip

Get the new version here

Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, Exchange 2013, Powershell

Quick overview of all unique email domains in use under a certain OU

June 13, 2016 JosL Leave a comment

We wanted an overview of which domains our users were using in a certain country (Netherlands in this case). So, a simple Powershell snippet that counts all unique domains it encounters in the ProxyAddresses field of all users under a certain OU.

Note that if you have set contacts / forwarders, some domains that appear may not actually be accepted domains in your exchange organization.


#Author: Jos Lieben (OGD)
#Date: 13-06-2016
#Script help: www.liebensraum.nl
#Purpose: retrieve all unique domains in use under a specific OU and count them
#Requirements:
#active directory PS module
########

ipmo activedirectory

$users = get-aduser -Filter * -Properties * -SearchBase "OU=Netherlands,OU=Countries,DC=lieben,DC=nu" -SearchScope SubTree

$domains = @{}
foreach($user in $users){

$emails = $user.ProxyAddresses
foreach($email in $emails){
$domain = $email.Split("@")[1]
if($domain){
$domains[$domain] += 1
}
}

}

Write-Output $domains

Office 365, OneDrive for Business, Powershell, Sharepoint Online

O365AntiCryptoLocker, restores the previous version of your files in Sharepoint Online or Onedrive for Business

June 8, 2016 JosL 14 Comments

Note: O365Undo is also free and can probably help you fix your crytolocker problem more precisely as it is the next version of O365AntiCryptoLocker

At OGD we sometimes have to deal with users that got infected with CryptoLockers and have both automated and controlled systems in place to prevent damage or restore data to any fileshares. An infection on Sharepoint Online or Onedrive has not yet happened, but eventually it of course will and I like to fix things before they break.

As Sharepoint Online and Onedrive for Business natively use versioning on files, you basically have no real risk of losing data to Cryptolockers, your RPO (Restore Point Objective) is 0. However, restoring the previous versions of files is quite a lot of work if done manually, so your RTO (Restore Time Objective) could be weeks or more.

Unless of course, you use Powershell. I’ve written a script that will restore the most current previous version of any file in a given Document Library.

Download: O365AntiCryptoLocker

Example usage for a Onedrive site:

.\O365AntiCryptoLocker.ps1 -siteURL&nbsp;"https://o365mig-my.sharepoint.com/personal/test1_o365mig_onmicrosoft_com" -login "mylogin" -password "mypassword" -libraryTitle "Documents"

Or for a Sharepoint Online Site:

.\O365AntiCryptoLocker.ps1 -siteURL&nbsp;"https://o365mig.sharepoint.com/site1"&nbsp;-login "mylogin" -password "mypassword" -libraryTitle "Documents"

You’ll need the Sharepoint Client Components installed, and you’ll have to have sufficient permissions on the library and its files.

Liebensraum