Powershell API Module

JJ Fullmer

Getting available host properties/parameters

Well first for your question on the attributes I think it’s because of what the api returns. For example

$hostObj = Get-FogObject -type Object -CoreObject host
$hostObj;
# You would see a count column with a count of all your hosts and a hosts column with a hash table object
# if you then set a variable to the hosts object in the return object, you'll get what you're looking for. You could also do it with select-object by doing | select-object -expandproperty hosts | select-object *
$hosts = $hostObj.hosts;
# I'm removing some information from this output
$hosts | get-member; #note get-member has an alias of gm which is what I typically use instead, save those keystrokes!


   TypeName: System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject

Name         MemberType   Definition
----         ----------   ----------
Equals       Method       bool Equals(System.Object obj)
GetHashCode  Method       int GetHashCode()
GetType      Method       type GetType()
ToString     Method       string ToString()
ADDomain     NoteProperty string ADDomain=
ADOU         NoteProperty string ADOU=
ADPass       NoteProperty string ADPass=
ADPassLegacy NoteProperty string ADPassLegacy=
ADUser       NoteProperty string ADUser=
biosexit     NoteProperty string biosexit=
building     NoteProperty string building=0
createdBy    NoteProperty string createdBy=jmin
createdTime  NoteProperty string createdTime=2016-02-25 14:43:30
deployed     NoteProperty string deployed=0000-00-00 00:00:00
description  NoteProperty string description=192.168.100.102
efiexit      NoteProperty string efiexit=
enforce      NoteProperty string enforce=1
hostalo      NoteProperty System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject hostalo=@{id=; hostID=; time=}
hostscreen   NoteProperty System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject hostscreen=@{id=; hostID=; width=800; he...
id           NoteProperty string id=83
image        NoteProperty System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject image=@{imageTypeID=; imagePartitionTypeID=; i...
imageID      NoteProperty string imageID=0
imagename    NoteProperty string imagename=
init         NoteProperty string init=
inventory    NoteProperty System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject inventory=@{id=; hostID=; primaryUser=; other1...
ip           NoteProperty string ip=
kernel       NoteProperty string kernel=
kernelArgs   NoteProperty string kernelArgs=
kernelDevice NoteProperty string kernelDevice=
macs         NoteProperty Object[] macs=System.Object[]
name         NoteProperty string name=
pending      NoteProperty string pending=
pingstatus   NoteProperty string pingstatus=<i class="icon-ping-down fa fa-exclamation-circle red" data-toggle="tool...
primac       NoteProperty string primac=
printerLevel NoteProperty string printerLevel=1
productKey   NoteProperty string productKey=
pub_key      NoteProperty string pub_key=
sec_time     NoteProperty string sec_time=0000-00-00 00:00:00
sec_tok      NoteProperty string sec_tok=
useAD        NoteProperty string useAD=

You’ll notice that some of the return values are objects and custom objects. These have even more sub fields that can be referenced.
A quick note though, in the newer not yet released to the master branch of the api, and @Tom-Elliott can correct me if this is no longer the case or something, the name of the property will become universal for each coreobject type. i.e right now you get hosts and then go into the hosts property, if you got groups it would be a groups property. The new version (that I believe is available in the working branch of the fogproject git along with a new ui/Fog 1.6) will have one name for all those properties. So if creating custom scripts around this try to make it modular so that you can find where you went into coreobject returns and change them to the new universtal property name (I can’t remember what its called right now).

Using For-EachObject and Where-Object to do magic

notes on foreach vs foreach-object

So you can indeed do some foreach stuff, but know that you can get weird behavior in powershell if you use an objects .ForEach({}) member function vs piping the object into a ForEach-Object command (which has an alias of % ie $hosts | % {do stuff}). see this link for more detail on what I think is the related reason for this, but I’m not 100%, but I do know it’s different between the two.

Find the laptops

So lets look at putting all the laptops in a To Be Image Group (Which I’m going to assume already exists). First thing you need to know is how you would identify the laptops from the information in the system. i.e. are they all the same model and have they all been imaged or at least inventoried in fog already? There is a systype field captured in inventory that might work. You could also utilize sysproduct if they are all the same model or have a list of models (you would use -in instead of where -match is in this example and put the list of strings in an @('array','of','model','names') I believe). You could also do this with the name property if you happen to have named them in a way to test against. But for this example we’re going to assume all laptops have the systype of ‘Notebook’

#Put all the hosts in an object, since you were using select-object in your question I'll do it in that style for the example
$hosts = Get-FogObject -type Object -CoreObject host | Select-Object -ExpandProperty hosts;
# Find all the hosts where the property of systype in inventory matches notebook
$laptops = $hosts | Where-Object { $PsItem.inventory.systype -match 'Notebook' }
# note the shorthand/alias version of above would be $hosts | ? { $_.inventory.systype -match 'Notebook' }

The new laptops object would have a foreach member ie $laptops.ForEach({code on each $_}) but that member function works best with a single property of an object as it processes the code in a different order, I think it’s related to begin {} process {} end {} blocks that I linked earlier. So I strongly suggest using foreach-object instead of $laptops.foreach({do stuff});

Get the group

Before we loop though we should get the information for the group you want to add to. I’m going to be inconsistent in how I nest into the property, I recommend consistency, just want to demonstrate the many ways you can access the property instead of assuming all readers of this just know all the ways. In this instance I am also assuming that the group already exists. You could also create the group with the api, but this answer is already too long and it can be hopefully figured out with these examples if it’s needed.

$groups = (Get-Fogobject -type Object -CoreObject group).groups
$group = $groups | ? name -match 'To Be Image'

Working with group associations

Now to add hosts to a group (or to see what groups they’re in) you’ll want the groupassociation object, here’s a little extra example on how it is used
There is a group association for every host to group connection. There are just 3 properties, the id of the association, the id of the host and the id of the group

$groupAssocs = Get-FogObject -Type Object -CoreObject groupassociation
$groupAssocs = $groupAssocs.GroupAssociations;

Now you have an object with all the group associations and you can do some fun stuff with it

Find and output all hosts in a group

Here’s an example of how you could find all the hosts currently in the group found earlier

$hostIdsInGroup = $groupAssocs | ? { $_.GroupID -match $group.id } | Select-Object -ExpandProperty HostId;
#convert the ids into an object with all the full hosts objects in it
$hostsInGroup = $hosts | ? id -in $hostIdsInGroup # or $hosts | ? { $hostIdsInGroup -contains $_.id }
# then list the findings in the console with just the host names
Write-Host "Hosts in the group $($Group.name) `n $($hostsInGroup.name | Out-String)"

out-string isn’t 100% needed there just wanted to use it in an example as it is helpful when wanting to output multiple properties of an object in a write-host command

Getting all groups a host is a member of

If you wanted all groups a specific host is a member of, lets say the last laptop in that laptop object ([-1] grabs the last object in an array)…

$hostInGroups = $laptops[-1];
$groupIdsInHost = $groupAssocs | ? { $_.hostID -match $hostInGroups.id } | Select-Object -ExpandProperty groupID;
$groupsWithHost = $groups | ? { $groupIdsInHost -contains $_.id }
#now list the findings
Write-Host "Groups the host $($hostInGroups.name) belongs to `n $($groupsWithHost.name | Out-String)"

Removing all hosts from a group

Now lets say you wanted To Be Image to be empty before adding, lets remove all hosts in that group, which we already found and have stored in $hostIdsInGroup
we first get the full group associations object (since we grabbed the variable with a piped selectobject we only have the one property in memory) and send a delete to each of the matching associations

$groupAssocsToDelete = $groupAssocs | ? { $_.GroupID -match $group.id } # or $groupAssocsToDelete = $groupAssocs | ? hostID -in $hostsIdsInGroup;
# loop through and start deleting
$groupAssocsToDelete | ForEach-Object {
    Remove-FogObject -type object -coreObject groupassociation -IdOfObject $_.id;
}

alternatively this might work too without looping, but not sure that the api supports this or not

$json = $groupAssocsToDelete | ConvertTo-Json;
Remove-FogObject -type object -coreObject groupassociation -jsonData $json

Adding hosts to a group

And finally at long last the answer to your actual question…
add all the laptops to the group and store the results in a list (because I like being able to reference what happened in my loop, and also list objects are cool because you cad .add($stuff) and .Remove($stuff) with simple methods)

$newAssocs = New-Object System.Collections.Generic.List[object];
$laptops | ForEach-Object {
    $json = @{
        "hostID"="$($_.id)";
        "groupID"="$($group.id)";
    } | ConvertTo-Json;
    # Note, when creating the json splat and then piping it to convertto-json you must encapsulate properties and values in quotes and match the case of the original property (i.e. ID instead of Id) as in this example or it won't parse right and will return a 417 error from the api
   $result = New-FogObject -type object -coreObject groupassociation -jsonData $json;
   $NewAssocs.Add($result);
}
#list the newassocs that added the laptops to your group
$NewAssocs;

Making sure it worked

Now you can go look in the gui to see the hosts are now in the group or you can use the method from earlier to output it in the console.

#you'll want to refresh the groupassocs variable because they have changed and then the rest is the same
$groupAssocs = Get-FogObject -Type Object -CoreObject groupassociation
$groupAssocs = $groupAssocs.GroupAssociations;
$hostIdsInGroup = $groupAssocs | ? { $_.GroupID -match $group.id } | Select-Object -ExpandProperty HostId;
#convert the ids into an object with all the full hosts objects in it
$hostsInGroup = $hosts | ? id -in $hostIdsInGroup # or $hosts | ? { $hostIdsInGroup -contains $_.id }
# then list the findings in the console with just the host names
Write-Host "Hosts in the group $($Group.name) `n $($hostsInGroup.name | Out-String)"

Concluding ramblings

One day in the future I hope to magically have time to update the module with helper functions to make some of these kinds of things easier. But I am yet to be able to find that time sadly. Although I suppose I do have the code written here now for some of the helper functions like Add-HostToGroup, Remove-HostFromGroup, Get-HostsInGroup, Get-GroupsInHost/get-HostMembership, get-fogHosts, get-fogGroups, get-FogGroupByName. But at least it is possible to do all those things with the existing commands, those would just be easier, but then you wouldn’t get to learn how to create them yourselves, and where’s the fun in that?

I hope these examples help and that I didn’t give too much information.

Edit: Edited post to have headings and separated the code segments so that more people can more easily find answers to other possible questions

JJ Fullmer

New Module Version Published

Just wanted to let people know that there’s a new version of the API yay!
It’s been published to the psgallery here https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/FogApi/1903.0.0.22 and it is awaiting a pull request to show up in the fog community scripts git.
It has new functions to help do some common tasks, particularly with snapins. Here’s a list of the current functions.

Add-FogSnapins
Set-FogObject
Get-FogAssociatedSnapins
Get-FogGroup
Get-FogHost
Get-FogHosts
Get-FogInventory
Get-FogLog
Get-FogObject
Get-FogServerSettings
Get-FogSnapins
Install-FogService
Invoke-FogApi
New-FogObject
Remove-FogObject
Remove-UsbMac
Set-FogInventory
Set-FogServerSettings
Set-FogSnapins
Start-FogSnapins
Update-FogObject

Wayne Workman

@JJ-Fullmer I commented on your PR, I’m concerned about the licensing.

JJ Fullmer

Due to current global pandemic conditions I find myself with some extra time to work on this. I do also have an infant, so not a ton of time, but more than I usually have to work on these kinds of projects.

I am currently thinking I will focus on the following things in the module but would love input on any features people would like in an API module out of the box.

Creating a readthedocs or github pages based webpage for help files integrated with powershell’s get-help {function-Name} -online functionality. i.e. https://github.com/darksidemilk/FogApi is a rough draft
Moving the api to its own repo following best practices for powershell modules. https://github.com/darksidemilk/FogApi.
Update the build script to utilize the new structure and documentation needs
Make sure each existing function has documentation, especially including examples
Make it compatible with Powershell 7 (ideally without losing powershell 5 compatibility)
Once compatible with powershell 7, add more cross platform compatibility for linux and mac (though I don’t have a way to test mac functionality) on all existing functions
Add Functions for more common fog tasks (Hoping to get some requests to know where focus is best spent)
Make it so the return object will work with the small api changes in fog 1.6 by making it just return just the content as the count is automatically included in a powershell object or changing the return object in some way that isn’t a breaking change. i.e. it currently returns something like

count: 100
hosts: {hostJsonContent}

in 1.6 I understand it will change to

count: 100
data: {hostJsonContent}

So I may utilize some method to make it so everything returns an object with count and data or just data or something based on what fog version you have. May also add additional 1.6 options if time permits (I understand there are join functions, and options to return just a specific parameter/member of an object or objects, or at least those were the plans 2 years ago)

Make it so there’s more pipeable commands. i.e. you put some host in a variable and then just pipe it to actions

Get-FogHost -hostname computername | Add-FogHostMac -macaddress "12:34:56:78:90"

This would probably take quite some time to add

We’ll see how much of this I’m able to do in the undetermined amount of time this pandemic has me at home all day.

JJ Fullmer

A new version has been published!

I haven’t yet completed all my goals. But about half or more of the functions have at least one example in their help file and there is now an online home for the documentation.

You can find the published listing here
https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/FogApi/2002.2.1.2

The documentation is now at https://fogapi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
and the module’s code is now in its own repository at https://github.com/darksidemilk/FogApi

Hopefully more updating still to come in the near future.
I have thoughts and plans on creating a custom class for ‘fogObjects’ returned from the api to make things more universal throughout and make creating pipeline functions easier. Want to make it so most functions have 3 parameter sets that include performing the operation by id, name, or by object. We’ll see when I get to that.

JJ Fullmer

This module appears to have gained some popularity…

Maybe I need to find some time to do more updating.

JJ Fullmer

Sadly that 27k downloads was a glitch on the psgallery site.
But I still did do some updating to fix a couple bugs I just found. Nothing major, just a couple tweaks to fix pending mac address handling

Released Version 2004.2.2.4

https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/FogApi/2004.2.2.4
Release notes - https://fogapi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ReleaseNotes/ (see versions 2004.2.2.1 - 2004.2.2.4 for changes)

JJ Fullmer

See also this post if you’re searching for how to create scheduled tasks via the api
https://forums.fogproject.org/post/139328

Jamaal

@jj-fullmer

Hello, jj,

Thanks for the fog api notes, appreciate you helping us out. I’m not sure if you remembered me, but have a few questions.

I’m trying to do 2 things. One to assign a group to a machine one created in fog via powershell. I tried get-foggroupbyname, but says the parameter is not recognized. parameter not recognized.PNG

It then told me to go to c:\program files… until I got to fogapi.psm1

I copied and pasted the command for cmdletBinding.

It didn’t error out, but didn’t return anything. Ex; , I know I created a Sales group in the Fog Gui with snapins assigned to it, so I wanted the machine to be assigned to that group to make it more dynamic. Please see attached pics. I’ll keep trying as well on my side. I’m so so on Powershell, but came a long way. parameter 2.PNG

JJ Fullmer

@jamaal I see that you’re using the powershell ISE. While that is still a great tool, I would personally recommend giving vscode with the powershell extension a try. That’s what I use for all my development and find it faster and easier to use.

Jamaal

@jj-fullmer said in Powershell API Module:

vscode

Thanks jj,

I’ll install & try out.

JJ Fullmer

A new small bugfix and feature release has just been published.
This fixes issues related to getting fog groups and adds functions for creating fog hosts.

https://github.com/darksidemilk/FogApi/releases/tag/2103.2.12

https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/FogApi/2103.2.12

Chris Whiteley

@JJ-Fullmer,

I had a feature request for the API. I am looking at trying to output the last time the computer was imaged so that when I scan the serial I can get that info direct out of PS. Have I just missed it or is that not in there?

Thanks!

JJ Fullmer

@chris-whiteley Sorry for the insanely delayed reply.
So you’re looking to find a host by the serial number? And then get the last time it was imaged?
I was coming here to post information on my recent update, but this sounded useful so I went ahead and implemented getting a foghost by the serialnumber in the inventory field and even a get-lastimagetime function that will default to prompting you to scan a serial number barcode
These will be published shortly.

-JJ

JJ Fullmer

@jj-fullmer
A new Major version has been released along with a quick feature revision shortly after

see
https://github.com/darksidemilk/FogApi/releases/tag/2208.3.0
and
https://github.com/darksidemilk/FogApi/releases/tag/2208.3.1

for details on what’s been added.

Some highlights include
Deploy-FogImage and Capture-FogImage functions to start deploy and capture tasks on fog hosts from powershell both instant and scheduled.
You could always do this, but it’s now simplified in helper functions.

Chris Whiteley

@jj-fullmer

I will check it out! Late is better than never! Appreciate your work on this.

JJ Fullmer

@JJ-Fullmer
A new version has been published!

Release notes here:

https://github.com/darksidemilk/FogApi/releases/tag/2303.5.26

Chris Whiteley

@JJ-Fullmer Thanks for your great work!

JJ Fullmer

A minor update has been released

Release notes: https://github.com/darksidemilk/FogApi/releases/tag/2303.5.33
PSgallery Listing: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/FogApi/2302.5.33

JJ Fullmer

A minor bugfix update has been released

Release notes: https://github.com/darksidemilk/FogApi/releases/tag/2304.5.41
PSgallery Listing: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/FogApi/2304.5.41