PoshPAIG

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Back again with some more information on the Scripting Guys' powershell for patching and auditing.

 If you have missed the first blog I found this whilst looking for something to help manage patches...I've not run this a couple of times in my environment (on servers which have no customer impact!) with good results.
Here's my findings...
Requirements:

  1. Install Net Framework 4
  2. Install Powershell 3
  3. Download both components:
  4. http://poshpaig.codeplex.com/releases/view/100929
  5. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553
  6. You may need to bypass the execution policy
  7. set-executionpolicy bypass
  8. You may need to add a firewall rule to your servers


  • Rule Type: Custom Rule
  • Program - Keep defaults
  • Protocol Type: TCP 
  • Local port: RPC Dynamic Ports
  • Scope - Keep defaults
  • Action - Keep defaults
  • Profile - Keep defaults
  • Name it.  Finish
What I did:


  1. Export list from vSphere client of all VM's
  2. Edit this list in Excel to show only those powered on and patch applicable (Windows)
  3. Cut the server list into Notepad saved this as a txt file
  4. Imported the txt file into PoshPAIG (host file import)
  5. Select All the servers
  6. Ran Audit Patches
  7. Bingo!

The interface isn't pretty, the buttons use confusing terminology and the errors could do with better phrasing but PoshPAIG does do what it says on the tin.

 And it is free.
So far I have used this for one of our full patch roll outs.  More next week when I complete the second patch weekend.  

 Fingers crossed!

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