SQLmonkeys

A friend and colleague of mine has just launched a new site - go to www.sqlmonkeys.com to have a look.
I'm not sure what contest will be added to the site, but I guess it will mainly be about SQL ... and monkeys ...

SQL: Poor man's audit

Most DBAs have had to examine unknown database/instances in order to evaluate their configuration.

I recently had to examine a few SQL servers for a client in order to offer advice on improvement - mainly in the area of "best practice configuration". This is a (simplified) version of a script I wrote in order to do a quick survey of misconfigurations. Please excuse the simple script - it is more of an exercise in SMO than in SQL or PowerShell.

## **************************************************************
## * Script Name: SQLpoormansaudit.ps1
## * Version: 1.0
## * Developed by:Jakob Bindslet
## * Contact: jakob@bindslet.dk
## * ----------------------------------------------------------
## * Usage: *
## * SQLpoormansaudit.ps1 "Server\InstanceName"
## * ----------------------------------------------------------
## * Description:
## * Script to perform an very quick audit of SQL
## * 2005+ instance.*
## * Tests for collation mismatch between DB & DBMS, allocated
## * memory, AutoClose/shrink, membership of fixed server roles
## * and other stuff
## * Can easily be extended to check for other parameters
## **************************************************************

Param ($instance)
[void][reflection.assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo")
$smo = new-object('Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server') $instance
$memSrv = $smo.information.physicalMemory
$memMin = $smo.configuration.minServerMemory.runValue
$memMax = $smo.configuration.maxServerMemory.runValue
$version = $smo.versionmajor
$cpuSrv = $smo.information.Processors
$maxParallel = $smo.configuration.maxDegreeOfParallelism.runvalue

## DBMS
Write-Host "Testing instance $($instance.toUpper()) [DBMS Level]" -fore "yellow"
Write-Host "Collation:                  " -noNewLine
Write-Host "$($smo.collation)" -fore "green"
Write-Host "Authentication:             " -noNewLine
Write-Host "$($smo.loginMode)" -fore $(if ($smo.loginMode -eq "Integrated") {"green"} else {"red"})
Write-Host "Login audit:                " -noNewLine
Write-Host "$($smo.auditLevel)" -fore $(if ($smo.auditLevel -eq "All") {"green"} else {"red"})
Write-Host "Max number of logfiles:     " -noNewLine
Write-Host "$($smo.numberOfLogFiles)" -fore $(if ($smo.numberOfLogFiles -gt 30) {"green"} elseif ($smo.numberOfLogFiles -gt 0) {"yellow"} else {"red"})
Write-Host "Server RAM available:       " -noNewLine
Write-Host "$memSrv MB" -fore "green"
Write-Host "SQL memory Min:             " -noNewLine
Write-Host "$memMin" -fore $(if ($memMin -eq 0) {"yellow"} else {"green"})
Write-Host "SQL memory Max:             " -noNewLine
Write-Host "$memMax ($([math]::round($memMax/$memSrv*100,1))% of server total)" -fore $(if ($memMax -gt 2000000) {"red"} else {"green"})
foreach ($role in $smo.roles) {
    if ($($role.enumserverrolemembers().count) -gt 1) {
        Write-Host "# of $($role.name)s: `t    " -noNewLine
        Write-Host "$($role.enumserverrolemembers().count)" -fore "yellow"
    }
}

## DATABASES
Write-Host "`nTesting Databases:" -fore "yellow"
$databases = $smo.databases | where {$_.id -gt 4}
Foreach ($db in $databases) {
    Write-Host "`nDatabase: " -noNewLine
    Write-Host "$($db.name.toUpper())" -fore "green"
    if ($db.autoClose -ne $false) {
        Write-Host "Auto Close:                 " -noNewLine; Write-Host $db.autoClose -fore "red"
        }
    if ($db.autoShrink -ne $false) {
        Write-Host "Auto Shrink:                " -noNewLine; Write-Host $db.autoShrink -fore "red"
    }
    if ($db.autoCreateStatisticsEnabled -ne $true) {
        Write-Host "Auto Create Statistics:     " -noNewLine; Write-Host $db.autoCreateStatisticsEnabled -fore "red"
    }
    if ($db.autoUpdateStatisticsEnabled -ne $true) {
        Write-Host "Auto Update Statistics:     " -noNewLine; Write-Host $db.autoUpdateStatisticsEnabled -fore "red"
    }
    if ($db.status -ne "Normal") {
        Write-Host "Status:                     " -noNewLine; Write-Host $db.status -fore "red"
    }
    if ($db.owner -ne "sa") {
        Write-Host "Owner:                      " -noNewLine; Write-Host $db.owner -fore "red"
    }
    if ($db.pageVerify -ne "Checksum") {
        Write-Host "Pageverify:                 " -noNewLine; Write-Host $db.pageVerify -fore "red"
    }    
    if ($db.collation -ne $smo.collation) {
        Write-Host "Collation:                  " -noNewLine; Write-Host $db.collation -fore "red"
    }    
    if ($($db.CompatibilityLevel.toString().replace('Version','')) -ne $version * 10) {
        Write-Host "Compatibility Level         " -noNewLine; Write-Host $db.CompatibilityLevel -fore "red"
    }    
    if (((get-date) - $db.LastBackupDate).days -gt 1) {
        Write-Host "Last full backup:           " -noNewLine; Write-Host $db.LastBackupDate -fore "red"
    }
}

PowerShell v2 Launch Party

PowerShell v2 finally launches October 22nd: http://powerscripting.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/powershell-v2-virtual-launch-party/

Virtual Windows & PowerShell

I'm playing around whit Windows 7 and the Virtual Windows feature at the momemt.

Naturally I've tried to manipulate Virtual Windows PC through PowerShell. At the moment the possibilities are apparently limited to using COM - with a namespace similar to Virtual PC/Virtual Server:

### Virtual Windows (Virtual PC) com object ###
$vpc = new-object -com VirtualPC.Application
$vms = $vps.VirtualMachines

Next try out the following commands:

$vms.items(1).save()
$vms.items(1).state
$vms.items(1).startup()

Or maybe just play a bit with Get-Member. If I get the time to play around more, I'll do another post on Virtual Windows.

Getting informationon installed CPUs, Cores and Sockets

A friend and former colleague asked me about a way to obtain rather detailed information on the type and number of CPUs installed in a server, as well as the number of cores present.
This is the function I came up with.

Please note that this function is incapable of coping nicely with limitations implemented using /NUMPROC in boot.ini
The function should work on Windows 2000 Server and above.


function GetCPUinfo {
    param ([array]$servernames = ".")
    foreach ($servername in $servernames) {
        [array]$wmiinfo = Get-WmiObject Win32_Processor -computer $servername
        $cpu = ($wmiinfo[0].name) -replace ' +', ' '
        $description = $wmiinfo[0].description
        $cores = ( $wmiinfo | Select SocketDesignation | Measure-Object ).count
        $sockets = ( $wmiinfo | Select SocketDesignation -unique | Measure-Object ).count
        Switch ($wmiinfo[0].architecture) {
            0 { $arch = "x86" }
            1 { $arch = "MIPS" }
            2 { $arch = "Alpha" }
            3 { $arch = "PowerPC" }
            6 { $arch = "Itanium" }
            9 { $arch = "x64" }
        }
        $manfg = $wmiinfo[0].manufacturer
        $obj = New-Object Object
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty Servername -value $servername
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty CPU -value $cpu
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty Description -value $description
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty Sockets -value $sockets
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty Cores -value $cores
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty Architecture -value $arch
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty Manufacturer -value $manfg
        $obj
    }
}

The function is invoked with a list of servers as the single parameter. If no parameter is specified, the local server "." is used.

$result = GetCPUinfo server1, server2, server3

The output can then be piped info a Format-Table or similar.

$result | format-table -auto

The result could look something like this:

Servername CPU                                   Description                         Sockets Cores Architecture Manufacturer
---------- ---                                   -----------                         ------- ----- ------------ ------------
server1    Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz         EM64T Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 8        4    16 x64          GenuineIntel
server2    Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz EM64T Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 6        1     2 x64          GenuineIntel
server3    AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 285         AMD64 Family 15 Model 33 Stepping 2       2     2 x64          AuthenticAMD
server4    Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E7340 @ 2.40GHz  EM64T Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 8        2     2 x64          GenuineIntel
server5    Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E7340 @ 2.40GHz  EM64T Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 11       4    16 x64          GenuineIntel
server6    Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz         x86 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 8          1     1 x86          GenuineIntel
server7    Pentium III Tualatin                  x86 Family 6 Model 11 Stepping 1          2     2 x86          GenuineIntel

PS
Please let me know if you find any limitations or has suggestions for improvement.

Testing WinRAR 3.90 beta

I recently had to evaluate the preformance of the Rarsofts new beta of WinRAR.
WinRAR is a powerful GUI and CLI archiever that handles many archieve formats.
In order to test the preformance I installed WinRAR 3.80 as well as WinRAR 3.90beta1 (in both 32 and 64-bit versions).

Here is a light version of the PowerShell script I came up with (please adjust file paths and $source according to your own need):

Function Test-Rar {
    param ($winrar = "c:\Program Files (x86)\WinRAR\Rar.exe",
        $source = "d:\psref351.pdf",
        $target = "c:\test.rar",
        $testruns = 1)
    $version = & $winrar
    Write-Host "Test using: $winrar" -fore "green"
    Write-Host $version[1] -fore "green"
    for ($i = 1; $i -le $testruns; $i++){
        if (Test-Path $target) { del $target }
        $time = Measure-Command {& $winrar a $target $source}
        $sourcesize = (Get-ChildItem $source).length
        $targetsize = (Get-ChildItem $target).length
        $obj = New-Object Object
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty Testrun -value $i
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty TimeInSeconds -value ([math]::round(($time.totalseconds), 2))
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty SourceByteSize -value $sourcesize
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty TargetByteSize -value $targetsize
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty CompressionPercent -value ([math]::round( (1-($targetsize / $sourcesize)) * 100,2))
        $obj
    }
}

The above function can be use in the following way:

Test-Rar -source "d:\psref351.pdf" -target "d:\test.rar"


However, I needed to run tests with several versions of WinRAR and compress rather large files. So I needed a small function to repeat the same test multipel times with different versions of WinRAR.

Function MultiTest {
    Param ($rarversions = "c:\Program Files (x86)\WinRAR\Rar.exe")
    foreach ($rarversion in $rarversions) {
        $result = Test-RAR -testruns 5 -winrar $rarversion
        $result
        $stat = $result | Measure-Object -Property TimeInSeconds -min -max -average
        $stat | Add-Member Noteproperty Executable -value $rarversion
        $stat
    }
}

Here is how to use the function:

$rarversions = "c:\Program Files (x86)\WinRAR\Rar.exe", "D:\wrar39b1\rar.exe", "D:\winrar-x64-39b1\rar.exe"
$result = MultiTest $rarversions
$result | Select Executable, Count, Average, Maximum, Minimum | ft -au


While this is not a preview of the new WinRAR version, my results indicate a decrease in the time required to create a .rar file in the 20-30% range. Most impressive indeed!

WebServer investigated

I recently spend some time playing around with creating a bunch of scripts to monitor changes in a web page. While doing this I needed to determine what kind of webserver a given site was hosted on. This is a somewhat simplified version of my solution:

function Get-WebServer {
    param ($target)
    if (-not ($target -like "http://*")) {
        $target = "http://" + $target
    }
    $wr = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($target)
    $wr.UserAgent = "InterwebExploder 10.0 RC1 - 'Titanic'"
    $header = $wr.GetResponse()
    Write-host "$target"
    $header | select Server, LastModified, ProtocolVersion, ResponseUri | Format-List
}

Please note that proxies and various other issues can ruin the function.
To use the function, simply call it with the name of the target url:

Get-WebServer "www.blogspot.com"

CLI Menu in PowerShell

There are a lot of WPF-based PowerShell menu functions and demos available in various places, but for some reason I feel that PowerShell really needs a good, ol' fashion CLI menu.

So, here is a quick, sort of hack'ish CLI menu for PowerShell (dont worry, I just made up the individual menu options - can you tell I just reread BOFH recently?).

Use the up and down arrows to navigate the menu, and press ENTER to select.

function DrawMenu {
    ## supportfunction to the Menu function below
    param ($menuItems, $menuPosition, $menuTitel)
    $fcolor = $host.UI.RawUI.ForegroundColor
    $bcolor = $host.UI.RawUI.BackgroundColor
    $l = $menuItems.length + 1
    cls
    $menuwidth = $menuTitel.length + 4
    Write-Host "`t" -NoNewLine
    Write-Host ("*" * $menuwidth) -fore $fcolor -back $bcolor
    Write-Host "`t" -NoNewLine
    Write-Host "* $menuTitel *" -fore $fcolor -back $bcolor
    Write-Host "`t" -NoNewLine
    Write-Host ("*" * $menuwidth) -fore $fcolor -back $bcolor
    Write-Host ""
    Write-debug "L: $l MenuItems: $menuItems MenuPosition: $menuposition"
    for ($i = 0; $i -le $l;$i++) {
        Write-Host "`t" -NoNewLine
        if ($i -eq $menuPosition) {
            Write-Host "$($menuItems[$i])" -fore $bcolor -back $fcolor
        } else {
            Write-Host "$($menuItems[$i])" -fore $fcolor -back $bcolor
        }
    }
}

function Menu {
    ## Generate a small "DOS-like" menu.
    ## Choose a menuitem using up and down arrows, select by pressing ENTER
    param ([array]$menuItems, $menuTitel = "MENU")
    $vkeycode = 0
    $pos = 0
    DrawMenu $menuItems $pos $menuTitel
    While ($vkeycode -ne 13) {
        $press = $host.ui.rawui.readkey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")
        $vkeycode = $press.virtualkeycode
        Write-host "$($press.character)" -NoNewLine
        If ($vkeycode -eq 38) {$pos--}
        If ($vkeycode -eq 40) {$pos++}
        if ($pos -lt 0) {$pos = 0}
        if ($pos -ge $menuItems.length) {$pos = $menuItems.length -1}
        DrawMenu $menuItems $pos $menuTitel
    }
    Write-Output $($menuItems[$pos])
}

Example:

$bad = "Format c:","Send spam to boss","Truncate database *","Randomize user password","Download dilbert","Hack local AD"
$selection = Menu $bad "WHAT DO YOU WANNA DO?"
Write-Host "YOU SELECTED : $selection ... DONE!`n"

Another Example:


$options = "Dir","Ping", "Ipconfig"
$selection = Menu $options "CHOOSE YOUR COMMAND:"
Switch ($selection) {
    "Dir" {Invoke-Expression "Dir C:\";break}
    "Ping" {Invoke-Expression "Ping 127.0.0.1";break}
    "Ipconfig" {Invoke-Expression "Ipconfig";break}
}

Trapping errors in Powershell

I just stumbled across this sweet little introduction to trapping errors in PowerShell:
http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/tobias/archive/2008/09/29/trapping-errors.aspx

Retrieveing the Windows Product Key

I was recently asked if I knew of a tool capable of retrieving the Product Key from an installed instance of Windows Vista. While there are several such tools available (use google), my solution - naturally - was to write a PowerShell script that can do just that.

The script below is based on information from "The Custodian" on Everything2: http://everything2.com/node/1058074

I've tested the function against Windows XP, Vista x64 and Windows 7 x64, as well as Windows Server 2003 and Windows Home Server. As long at the the user executing the script has sufficient privileges, and no firewall is blocking remote access to the registry/WMI the script appears to work fine.

function Get-WindowsKey {
    ## function to retrieve the Windows Product Key from any PC
    ## by Jakob Bindslet (jakob@bindslet.dk)
    param ($targets = ".")
    $hklm = 2147483650
    $regPath = "Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion"
    $regValue = "DigitalProductId"
    Foreach ($target in $targets) {
        $productKey = $null
        $win32os = $null
        $wmi = [WMIClass]"\\$target\root\default:stdRegProv"
        $data = $wmi.GetBinaryValue($hklm,$regPath,$regValue)
        $binArray = ($data.uValue)[52..66]
        $charsArray = "B","C","D","F","G","H","J","K","M","P","Q","R","T","V","W","X","Y","2","3","4","6","7","8","9"
        ## decrypt base24 encoded binary data
        For ($i = 24; $i -ge 0; $i--) {
            $k = 0
            For ($j = 14; $j -ge 0; $j--) {
                $k = $k * 256 -bxor $binArray[$j]
                $binArray[$j] = [math]::truncate($k / 24)
                $k = $k % 24
            }
            $productKey = $charsArray[$k] + $productKey
            If (($i % 5 -eq 0) -and ($i -ne 0)) {
                $productKey = "-" + $productKey
            }
        }
        $win32os = Get-WmiObject Win32_OperatingSystem -computer $target
        $obj = New-Object Object
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty Computer -value $target
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty Caption -value $win32os.Caption
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty CSDVersion -value $win32os.CSDVersion
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty OSArch -value $win32os.OSArchitecture
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty BuildNumber -value $win32os.BuildNumber
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty RegisteredTo -value $win32os.RegisteredUser
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty ProductID -value $win32os.SerialNumber
        $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty ProductKey -value $productkey
        $obj
    }
}

Use the function to retrieve the Product Key from the local PC:

Get-WindowsKey

Or to retrieve the Product Key from one or more PCs (locally or remotely):

Get-WindowsKey "pc1", "pc2", "server999", "server777"

Remeber that the output from the function is a standard PowerShell object, so you can pipe into sort-object, format-table or mayby ConvertTo-HTML ...

T-SQL query with object-based result

Two small functions that can be used to make an T-SQL query, and have the result returned as a standard PowerShell object. This can be useful if - for some reason - you would like to use Sort-Object or similar on the result afterwards.

function ConnectSQL {
    Param ($server, $query, $database)
    $conn = new-object ('System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection')
    $connString = "Server=$server;Integrated Security=SSPI;Database=$database"
    $conn.ConnectionString = $connString
    $conn.Open()
    $sqlCmd = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand
    $sqlCmd.CommandText = $query
    $sqlCmd.Connection = $conn
    $Rset = $sqlCmd.ExecuteReader()
    ,$Rset ## The comma is used to create an outer array, which PS strips off automatically when returning the $Rset
}

function QuerySQL {
    Param ($server, $query, $database = "master")
    $data = ConnectSQL $server $query $database
    while ($data.read() -eq $true) {
        $max = $data.FieldCount -1
        $obj = New-Object Object
        For ($i = 0; $i -le $max; $i++) {
            $name = $data.GetName($i)
            $obj | Add-Member Noteproperty $name -value $data.GetValue($i)
     }
     $obj
    }
}

The function is used like this:

QuerySQL "MyServer" "SELECT * FROM sysdatabases"

Or maybe more like this:

$data = QuerySQL "MyServer" "SELECT * FROM sysdatabases"
$data | Format-Table -AutoSize