PowerShell RemoteForge

PowerShell RemoteForge module used for managing and using custom PSRemoting transports. By itself this module only exposes the builtin transports ssh and wsman, it is designed to be used as a dependency of other modules to provide a simpler way of writing transports and a common interface for end users to use those transports.

See RemoteForge index for more details.

Requirements

These cmdlets have the following requirements

• PowerShell v7.3 or newer

Builtin Forges

The following forges are provided by this module:

Name	Description	ConnectionInfo Cmdlet
ssh	The builtin PowerShell SSH transport	New-SSHForgeInfo
wsman	The builtin PowerShell WSMan/WinRM transport	New-WSManForgeInfo

The WSMan transport on Linux requires the WSMan C library to be setup properly which is outside the scope of this module. The ConnectionInfo Cmdlet specified can be used to create a RunspaceConnectionInfo for that transport which can be used in the underlying PowerShell .NET API, provided to Invoke-Remote, Enter-Remote, or New-RemoteForgeSession.

Extra Forges

These forges are not part of this module but can be installed separated and used with the Invoke-Remote, Enter-Remote, and New-RemoteForgeSession cmdlets provided by this module.

Name	Description	ConnectionInfo Cmdlet

See the documentation for each linked forge module for more information on how to use them.

Examples

The following cmdlets can be used with a registered forge:

• Invoke-Remote - replacement for Invoke-Command
• Enter-Remote - replacement for Enter-PSSession
• New-RemoteForgeSession - replacement for New-PSSession

These three cmdlets accept a forge connection through the -ConnectionInfo parameter which describe the connection details. See about_RemoteForgeConnectionInfo for more details on how this connection an be specified.

The Invoke-Remote cmdlet can be used to invoke a scriptblock or script file on the target host(s)

# Connects over ssh to hostname
Invoke-Remote -ConnectionInfo ssh:hostname {
    Get-Item foo
}

# Connects over wsman to hostname
Invoke-Remote -ConnectionInfo wsman:hostname {
    Get-Item foo
}

# Connects to both hostname over ssh and a custom forge called
# process (not included). This is done in parallel up to the
# defined -ThrottleLimit
Invoke-Remote ssh:hostname, process:foo {
    Get-Item foo
}

If the forge name is not used in the connection string, the default forge is used. The variable $PSRemoteForgeDefault can be used to specify the default forge in the current scope, if unset it defaults to ssh.

# Will run host1, host2, host3 all over wsman in parallel.
$PSRemoteForgeDefault = 'wsman'
Invoke-Remote host1, host2, host3 {
    Get-Item foo
}

The Enter-Remote cmdlet can only be used in interactive scenarios. Just like Enter-PSSession, it provides an interactive PSHost over the connection specified. Type in exit to exit the remote PSHost and return back to the local host that entered the session. Do not use this cmdlet in a script as it will not work.

The New-RemoteForgeSession cmdlet can be used to create a PSSession object. This is useful for long lived session that run multiple commands with Invoke-Remote or when needing to interact with the builtin cmdlets Invoke-Command, Enter-PSSession, etc.

# Creates the PSSession object
$session = New-RemoteForgeSession ssh:foo

# Runs two separate commands on the PSSession using the builtin
# Invoke-Command cmdlet.
Invoke-Command -Session $session { 'foo' }

Invoke-Command -Session $session { 'bar' }

# The session should be closed when no longer needed
$session | Remove-PSSession

Installing

The easiest way to install this module is through PowerShellGet.

You can install this module by running either of the following Install-PSResource or Install-Module command.

# Install for only the current user
Install-PSResource -Name RemoteForge -Scope CurrentUser
Install-Module -Name RemoteForge -Scope CurrentUser

# Install for all users
Install-PSResource -Name RemoteForge -Scope AllUsers
Install-Module -Name RemoteForge -Scope AllUsers

The Install-PSResource cmdlet is part of the new PSResourceGet module from Microsoft available in newer versions while Install-Module is present on older systems.

Contributing

Contributing is quite easy, fork this repo and submit a pull request with the changes. To build this module run .\build.ps1 -Task Build in PowerShell. To test a build run .\build.ps1 -Task Test in PowerShell. This script will ensure all dependencies are installed before running the test suite.