Getting Started with Bicep, an ARM DSL for Azure

Getting Started with Bicep, an ARM DSL for Azure

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Note: This is one part of a several part blog series that goes through Azure Bicep

What is Azure Bicep

Bicep is a Domain Specific Language or DSL, for deploying Azure resources in a declarative manner. It ‘aims to drastically simplify the authoring experience with a cleaner syntax and better support for modularity and code re-use. Bicep is a transparent abstraction over ARM and ARM templates, which means anything that can be done in an ARM Template can be done in Bicep.’1

Bicep moves away from the JSON syntax used by ARM Templates to something similar to HCL in Terraform. The end result is a syntax that is easier to both read and write. Bicep code is converted into ARM Template code (JSON), and then the resulting ARM Template code (JSON) is used to deploy your Azure resources.

One of the key benefits to Bicep to another DSL like … Continue...

A PowerShell Game you can Compete with People Online – Feature Update to PSWordle

A PowerShell Game you can Compete with People Online – Feature Update to PSWordle

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Usually, when I update items such as modules, functions, and other projects, I don’t make a new post but rather adjust the original post. But, in this case there are so many changes and new features, I felt that I had too. I will still be updating the original post so if anyone stumbles upon it they won’t be given old information. A HUGE Thank You to Lee Holmes whose PowerShell code of the Wordle logic was so good, I ended up re-writing about 90% of this module!

What is the Game?

The game is a clone of Wordle which I came across reading a New York Times article and based off my Twitter feed, is quite a popular game. The game itself is pretty simple, you have 6 attempts to guess the word. Letters that turn gray are not letters found in the word at all, yellow letters are … Continue...

Play Wordle, the Puzzle Game Using PowerShell

Play Wordle, the Puzzle Game Using PowerShell

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I recently came across a NYTimes article talking about a new game called, ‘Wordle.’ If you are not familiar with the game, its a text-based game where you have 6 tries to guess the word. Letters in a Gray box are not letters found in the word. Letters in a Yellow box are found in the word, but are in the incorrect spot. And finally, letters in a Green box are in the word and in the correct location.

After playing, I decided to see how I could transport the game over to PowerShell because why not? After a few hours I got it working and uploaded to the PowerShell Gallery so everyone can play. Below, I will talk more in depth about some of the features, how to install the module, and how to create a new game.

Install the Module

The module is uploaded to the PowerShell Gallery, … Continue...

From Standard User to Elevated Administrator: Run Elevated PowerShell Commands with PowerShell Studio and Impersonation

From Standard User to Elevated Administrator: Run Elevated PowerShell Commands with PowerShell Studio and Impersonation

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I recently had a request to create a small applet/windows form that would allow regular end users to perform an administrative task. For example, restart the Print Spooler service. We did not want to grant the user any elevated rights, only to give them a program that would allow them to perform the single task and nothing more. PowerShell to the rescue –

Beginning with Windows Vista, the administrator security token split with the standard user token. This means that to perform administrative tasks you must elevate (UAC). Each app that requires the administrator access token must prompt for consent. Using PowerShell Studio I can create my Winform and use an administrator manifest to prompt for elevation, and input either a RunAs account or specify an account to Impersonate as.

The Issue

The problem however, is Windows evaluates manifests prior to RunAs or Impersonation. It will load the manifest before … Continue...

Uninstall the built-in Chat from Microsoft Teams in Windows 11 with Intune

Uninstall the built-in Chat from Microsoft Teams in Windows 11 with Intune

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Windows 11 comes with Chat from Microsoft Teams which is ‘a signature, lightweight experience brought right to the Taskbar to let Teams personal account users quickly start a video call or chat with friends and family.’1 The problem with this is that it is only available for Personal accounts and not for Work or School accounts. 

The new Teams experience on Windows 11 and Chat are intended for personal Microsoft accounts and will be available only to individuals using such accounts.

With this installed by default, and Teams for Work/School, you will have two versions of Microsoft Teams installed locally. This can be confusing to end users.

Uninstall Chat for Teams with Intune

Save the following PowerShell script locally, we will need to upload this to Intune

$MSTeams = "MicrosoftTeams"

$WinPackage = Get-AppxPackage | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq $MSTeams}
$ProvisionedPackage = Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | Where-Object { $_.DisplayName -eq $WinPackage }
… Continue...
Easily Enable End Users to Manage Active Directory Users with PowerShell GUI

Easily Enable End Users to Manage Active Directory Users with PowerShell GUI

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Recently I got a request to find a way to let managers or Human Resources the ability to modify basic user attributes in Active Directory. Like anyone else, I presented the idea of using RSAT to let them modify users in ADUC or ADAC. This was not an ideal solution because ADUC can become overwhelming to someone that isn’t technical. They wanted something that was extremely basic, easy to follow and work in without any guidance or instructions, and did not show the user anything else that they could not modify or needed to see.

The decision was made to create a custom program with the pre-requisite of having RSAT installed so we could use the AD modules underneath the hood. We could then control permissions on the Active Directory side.

Improvements from ADUC

Because I built this with a specific audience in mind, I was able to make some … Continue...

Get Early Voting Locations, Drop Off Ballot Sites, and Election Polling Places with PowerShell

Get Early Voting Locations, Drop Off Ballot Sites, and Election Polling Places with PowerShell

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The 2020 Election is happening on November 3rd, and many people have been lining up to vote early due to COVID-19. Now using PowerShell, you can get your registered polling places based on your address, all early voting locations around you, and drop off ballot locations. All of the information is retrieved using Google’s Civic Information API.

Features

Early Voting Locations

To get early voting locations you can use Get-EarlyVotingPlaces or Get-EarlyPollingPlaces. It will return as many results as the API gets and show you the starting date of the location, Name, Polling hours for each day, address, city, state, and zip code.

Ballot Drop Off Locations

If you got a Mail-in ballot, you can look up drop off locations by using, Get-BallotDropOffLocations or Get-DropOffBallotLocations. Note: Not all states publish this data. You will get a max of 10 results back and it will show you the start … Continue...

Text your Azure Infrastructure with Serverless Computing and PowerShell

Text your Azure Infrastructure with Serverless Computing and PowerShell

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Due to COVID-19 and social distancing, I have found myself camping a lot more than in previous years. One problem that has brought with it is the high probability of being somewhere with no cell phone data service or poor cell phone data. Couple with my incredibly poor memory, I have often forgotten to turn off servers to save on cost in my dev or test environment until I’m out in the woods. Also, I wanted the ability to use Google Voice as well as Siri in my car or even at home, to turn off, turn on, or check the status of my servers in my Azure tenants. This has even come in handy when I didn’t have my phone on me and had to use the wife’s phone to turn on or off some servers in my tenant. (I set it to only accept messages from my phone … Continue...

Office 365 Anti-Impersonation Email Banner with PowerShell & Azure for Large Enterprises – No More Mailbox Limit

Office 365 Anti-Impersonation Email Banner with PowerShell & Azure for Large Enterprises – No More Mailbox Limit

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The Problem

E-mail spoofing/impersonation is a huge threat to many companies today. A very common approach by scammers is to send your users an email using the display name of a real person within your company.  Many users will glance at the email and see the display name and be none the wiser. A popular defense against this is to tag all external emails with a banner, letting the user know that the email came from an external source. The biggest problem with this method is that it tags all emails, which over the course of a few months, could be thousands of emails for a single user, causing them to begin to ignore the banner altogether.

So I like to create mail flow rules in Exchange to only append a banner if the email originates from an external source, and the display name of the sender matches a display … Continue...

Deploy and Manage Azure Infrastructure Using Terraform, Remote State, and Azure DevOps Pipelines (YAML)

Deploy and Manage Azure Infrastructure Using Terraform, Remote State, and Azure DevOps Pipelines (YAML)

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Overview

In this article, I will be showing you how to create an Azure DevOps CI/CD (continuous integration / continuous deployment) Pipeline that will deploy and manage an Azure environment using Terraform. Terraform is a tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently.

Configuration files (In our case, it will be named ‘Main.tf’) describe to Terraform how you want your environment constructed. “Terraform generates an execution plan describing what it will do to reach the desired state, and then executes it to build the described infrastructure. As the configuration changes, Terraform can determine what changed and create incremental execution plans which can be applied.”1

By creating an entire CI/CD pipeline, we can automate our infrastructure-as-code (IaC) deployment. When we have made a change to our Terraform code (adding something, removing something, changing something), the Pipeline will automatically log in to our Azure environment, add any new … Continue...