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As I've explained in my other question, I'm busy setting up a PowerShell module repository in my enterprise.

My plan is to have a master repository (r/w access to a limited group of people) and slave repositories (read only access to everyone). I need multiple repositories because clients are located in different security zones and I can't have a central location reachable by all clients.

For this reason, I need to configure the PowerShell profile of the clients so that they can point to the correct repository to find the modules. I would like to define a $PowerShellRepositoryPath environment variable for this purpose.

Also, the profile needs to be customized in order for it to execute a script located in the repository (thus where $PowerShellRepositoryPath points to) when PowerShell starts (my goal here is to automatically add the latest module versions to the PSModulePath of the clients on startup).

We have a mixed environment with domain members and stand-alone servers in different network zones.

How would you proceed? Is it possible to push that variable and the profile via a GPO for domain members? Would customizing the $Profile variable via GPO be an option?

What about the standalone servers?

Edit: I think that for creating the environment variable, I'll just use a GPO to create it and use it in PowerShell via $env:variableName. For non-domain situations, I'll probably have to use a script though..

Community
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dSebastien
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2 Answers2

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I am not sure about pushing $profile via GPO. But, I'd simply put a logon script that copies the profile script from a network location based on the user's group/security membership.

ravikanth
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Well if you're going to change the path to the modules, I'd have a file in the repository (say current.txt) that has the name for the current module (or current file path, whichever you are changing) in it. Then have the $profile script read the content of that file, and set the variable based on the contents. This way you don't have to screw around with updating the profile scripts, just update the central repository current.txt file with the path (or partial path, the part that changes, or filename or whatever), and when it replicates to the client repositories, all powershell profiles get updated with the latest modules when the profile script is executed.

Out of curiosity, why not just overwrite the module files in the client repositories with the latest version? If you did it that way, all clients would always have the latest versions, and you wouldn't have to update the $profile scripts.

Alternately you could always write another script to replace the $profile script on all machines. I think the first route I suggested would be the cleanest way of doing what you are after.

As far as the GPO thing goes, I don't believe you can do this. There is no GPO defined to control what is in the profile script. I would say you could maybe do it with a custom ADM file, but the profile script path is not controlled by the registry, so no go there.

JoeG
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  • Hello, thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, having a file in the repository won't help since what the clients need to know is precisely the repository location (because it varies depending on the network/security zone they belong to). – dSebastien Apr 01 '11 at 06:52
  • The master repository will be pushed towards the slave repositories and all clients will be configured to point to the relevant slave repository. The slave repositories will thus always contain the latest module versions, but my question is merely about how to best configure the clients so that they know the path to the slave repository they have to use – dSebastien Apr 01 '11 at 06:54
  • ok simple enough, put the file somewhere that is a known constant. I'm sure there are already network shares, simply put the current.txt file there, or alternatively create a network share that all users will have access to, and set it to read only. – JoeG Apr 01 '11 at 16:13