Tag Archives: dbatools

Creating Azure SQL Database AAD Contained Database Users with an SPN using PowerShell, Secrets Management, Azure Key Vault, and dbatools

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Following on from my posts about using Secret Management Good bye Import-CliXml and running programmes as a different user, I have another use case.

After creating Azure SQL Databases in an Elastic Pool using a process pretty similar to this one I blogged about last year, I needed to be able to programmatically create users and assign permissions.

I need a user to login with

When I created my Azure SQL Server with Terraform, I set the Azure Admin to be a SPN as you can see in the image from the portal and set it to have an identity using the documentation for azurerm_mssql_server.

This allows this user to manage the access for the SQL Server as long as the SQL Server Azure AD identity has Directory Reader privileges. The SQL Server is called temp-beard-sqls and as you can see the identity is assigned to the role.

The privileges required to do this for a single identity are quite high

so now, you can assign an Azure Active Directory Group to that Role and allow less-privileged users to add the identity to this group . The documentation is here and there is a tutorial here explaining the steps you need to take.

What is an Azure SPN?

An Azure service principal is an identity created for use with applications, hosted services, and automated tools to access Azure resources.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/create-an-azure-service-principal-azure-cli?toc=%2Fazure%2Fazure-resource-manager%2Ftoc.json&view=azure-cli-latest

I created the SPN using Azure CLI straight from the Azure Portal by clicking this button

and running

az ad sp create-for-rbac --name ServicePrincipalName

This will quickly create a SPN for you and return the password

Yes I have deleted this one

Add Azure Key Vault to Secret Management

In my previous posts, I have been using the Default Key Vault which is limited to your local machine and the user that is running the code. It would be better to use Azure Key Vault to store the details for the SPN so that it safely stored in the cloud and not on my machine and also so that anyone (or app) that has permissions to the vault can use it.

First you need to login to Azure in PowerShell (You will need to have the AZ* modules installed)

Connect-AzAccount

Be aware, the login box can appear behind the VS Code or Azure Data Studio window!

Once connected, if you have several Azure subscriptions, you can list them with

Get-AzSubscription

You can choose your subscription with

$AzureSubscription = Set-AzContext -SubscriptionName "NAME OF SUBSCRIPTION"

For the Secret Management Module to manage the Azure Key Vault, you first need to register it.

Ensure that you have permissions to connect by following the details in the network security documentation https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/key-vault/general/network-security and the secure access documentation https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/key-vault/general/secure-your-key-vault

Then you can run Register-SecretVault . You need to provide the local name for the key vault, the module name Az.KeyVault, and a VaultParameters hashtable with the KeyVault name and the Azure Subscription ID. You can register other types of Key Vaults to the Secret Management module in this way and they will require different values for the VaultParameters parameter.

$KeyVaultName = 'beard-key-vault'
Register-SecretVault -Name BeardKeyVault -ModuleName Az.KeyVault -VaultParameters @{ AZKVaultName = $KeyVaultName; SubscriptionId = $AzureSubscription.Subscription }

Adding the SPN details to the Azure Key Vault

Using the values for AppID – (Note NOT the display name) and the values for the password from the Azure CLI output or by creating a new secret for the SPN with PowerShell or via the portal. You can use the following code to add the SPN details and the tenantid to the Azure Key Vault using the Secret Management module

$ClientId = Read-Host "Enter ClientID" -AsSecureString
$SecretFromPortal = Read-Host "Enter Client Secret" -AsSecureString 
$tenantid = Read-Host "Enter TenantId" -AsSecureString 
Set-Secret -Vault BeardKeyVault -Name service-principal-guid -Secret $ClientId
Set-Secret -Vault BeardKeyVault -Name service-principal-secret -SecureStringSecret $SecretFromPortal
Set-Secret -Vault BeardKeyVault -Name Tenant-Id -Secret $tenantid

You can also do this with the Az.KeyVault module by following the instructions here

You can see the secrets in the portal

and also at the command line with the Secret Management module using

Get-SecretInfo -Vault RegisteredNameOfVault

Can my user connect?

If I try to connect in Azure Data Studio to my Azure SQL Database with my AAD account to the temp-sql-db-beard database. It fails.

By the way a great resource for troubleshooting the SQL error 18456 failure states can be found here https://sqlblog.org/2020/07/28/troubleshooting-error-18456

dbatools to the rescue 🙂

dbatools is an open source community collaboration PowerShell module for administrating SQL Server. You can find more about it at dbatools.io and get the book that Chrissy and I are writing about dbatools at dbatools.io\book

You can connect to Azure SQL Database with an Azure SPN using the following code. It will get the secrets from the Azure Key Vault that have been set above and create a connection. Lets see if I can run a query as the SPN.

$SqlInstance = 'temp-beard-sqls.database.windows.net'
$databasename = 'master'
$appid = Get-Secret -Vault BeardKeyVault -Name service-principal-guid  -AsPlainText
$Clientsecret = Get-Secret -Vault BeardKeyVault -Name service-principal-secret
$credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ($appid,$Clientsecret)
$tenantid = Get-Secret -Vault BeardKeyVault -Name Sewells-Tenant-Id -AsPlainText
$AzureSQL = Connect-DbaInstance -SqlInstance $SqlInstance -Database $databasename  -SqlCredential $credential -Tenant $tenantid  -TrustServerCertificate 

Invoke-DbaQuery -SqlInstance $AzureSql -Database master  -SqlCredential $credential -Query "Select SUSER_NAME() as 'username'"

Excellent 🙂

Add a user to the user database

I can then add my user to the temp-sql-db-beard Database. I need to create a new connection to the user database as you cannot use the USE [DatabaseName] statement

$Userdatabasename = 'temp-sql-db-beard'

$AzureSQL = Connect-DbaInstance -SqlInstance $SqlInstance -Database $Userdatabasename -SqlCredential $credential -Tenant $tenantid  -TrustServerCertificate

Whilst you can use dbatools to create new users in Azure SQL Database at present you cant create AAD users. You can run a T-SQL Script to do this though. This script will create a contained database user in the database. I have added the role membership also but this can also be done with Add-DbaDbRoleMember from dbatools

$Query = @"
CREATE USER [rob@sewells-consulting.co.uk] FROM EXTERNAL PROVIDER
ALTER ROLE db_datareader ADD MEMBER [rob@sewells-consulting.co.uk]
"@
Invoke-DbaQuery -SqlInstance $AzureSql -Database $Userdatabasename  -SqlCredential $credential -Query $Query

Lets check the users on the database with dbatools

Get-DbaDbUser -SqlInstance $AzureSql -Database $Userdatabasename  |Out-GridView

I have my user and it is of type External user. Lets see if I can connect

Bingo 🙂

Happy Automating

Because I dont like to see awesome people struggling with PowerShell

Here is the same code using just the Az.KeyVault module

$appid = (Get-AzKeyVaultSecret -vaultName "beard-key-vault" -name "service-principal-guid").SecretValueText
$Clientsecret = (Get-AzKeyVaultSecret -vaultName "beard-key-vault" -name "service-principal-secret").SecretValue
$credential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ($appid,$Clientsecret)
$tenantid =  (Get-AzKeyVaultSecret -vaultName "beard-key-vault" -name "Sewells-Tenant-Id").SecretValueText
$AzureSQL = Connect-DbaInstance -SqlInstance $SqlInstance -Database $databasename  -SqlCredential $credential -Tenant $tenantid  -TrustServerCertificate


Notifying a Teams Channel of a SQL Agent Job result

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Following on from yesterdays post about creating an overview of SQL Agent Job Results and sending it to a Teams channel, I was given another challenge

Can you write a job step that I can add to SQL Agent jobs that can send the result of that job to a Teams Channel

A person with a need

The use case was for some migration projects that had steps that were scheduled via SQL Agent Jobs and instead of the DBA having to estimate when they would finish and keep checking so that they could let the next team know that it was time for their part to start, they wanted it to notify a Teams channel. This turned out especially useful as the job finished earlier than expected at 3am and the off-shore team could begin their work immediately.

Using SQL Agent Job tokens with PowerShell

You can use SQL Agent job tokens in Job step commands to reference the existing instance or job but I did not know if you could use that with PowerShell until I read Kendra Little’s blog post from 2009.

Thank you Kendra

Nothing is ever as easy as you think

So I thought, this is awesome, I can create a function and pass in the Instance and the JobId and all will be golden.

Nope

job_id <> $(JobID)

If we look in the sysjobs table at the Agent Job that we want to notify Teams about the result.

We can see that the job_id is

dc5937c3-766f-47b7-a5a5-48365708659a

If we look at the JobId property with PowerShell

We get

dc5937c3-766f-47b7-a5a5-48365708659a

Awesome, they are the same

But

If we look at the value of the $(JobID) SQL Agent Job Token,

we get

C33759DC6F76B747A5A548365708659A

which makes matching it to the JobId tricky

I tried all sorts of ways of casting and converting this value in SQL and PowerShell and in the end I just decided to manually convert the value

    $CharArray = $JobID.ToCharArray()

    $JobGUID = $CharArray[8] + $CharArray[9] + $CharArray[6] + $CharArray[7] + $CharArray[4] + $CharArray[5] + $CharArray[2] + $CharArray[3] + '-' + $CharArray[12] + $CharArray[13] + $CharArray[10] + $CharArray[11] + '-' + $CharArray[16] + $CharArray[17] + $CharArray[14] + $CharArray[15] + '-' + $CharArray[18] + $CharArray[19] + $CharArray[20] + $CharArray[21] + '-' + $CharArray[22] + $CharArray[23] + $CharArray[24] + $CharArray[25] + $CharArray[26] + $CharArray[27] + $CharArray[28] + $CharArray[29] + $CharArray[30] + $CharArray[31] + $CharArray[32] + $CharArray[33]

Send the information to Teams

Following the same pattern as yesterdays post, I created a function to send a message, depending on the outcome of the job and post it to the Teams function.

Again, I used Enter-Pssession to run the Teams notification from a machine that can send the message. (I have also included the code to do this without requiring that below so that you can send the message from the same machine that runs the job if required)

This code below is saved on a UNC share or the SQL Server as SingleNotifyTeams.ps1

Param(
    $SqlInstance,
    $JobID
)

$webhookurl = ""

$NotifyServer = 'BeardNUC2'
function Notify-TeamsSQlAgentJob {
    Param(
        $SQLInstance,
        $JobID,
        $webhookurl
    )

    $SQLInstance = $SQLInstance 
    # Import-Module 'C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\dbatools\1.0.107\dbatools.psd1'
    [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = { $true }
    [Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

    $CharArray = $JobID.ToCharArray()

    $JobGUID = $CharArray[8] + $CharArray[9] + $CharArray[6] + $CharArray[7] + $CharArray[4] + $CharArray[5] + $CharArray[2] + $CharArray[3] + '-' + $CharArray[12] + $CharArray[13] + $CharArray[10] + $CharArray[11] + '-' + $CharArray[16] + $CharArray[17] + $CharArray[14] + $CharArray[15] + '-' + $CharArray[18] + $CharArray[19] + $CharArray[20] + $CharArray[21] + '-' + $CharArray[22] + $CharArray[23] + $CharArray[24] + $CharArray[25] + $CharArray[26] + $CharArray[27] + $CharArray[28] + $CharArray[29] + $CharArray[30] + $CharArray[31] + $CharArray[32] + $CharArray[33]

    $Job = Get-DbaAgentJob -SQlInstance $SQLInstance | Where jobid -eq $JobGuiD
    $JobName = $Job.Name
    $Jobsteps = Get-DbaAgentJobStep -SQlInstance $SQLInstance -Job $JobName

    $JobStepNames = $Jobsteps.Name -join ' , '
    $JobStartDate = $job.JobSteps[0].LastRunDate
    $JobStatus = $job.LastRunOutcome
    $lastjobstepid = $jobsteps[-1].id
    $Jobstepsmsg = $Jobsteps | Out-String
    $JobStepStatus = ($Jobsteps | Where-Object {$_.id -ne $lastjobstepid -and $_.LastRunDate -ge $JobStartDate} ).ForEach{
        "   $($_.Name)  - $($_.LastRunDate) **$($_.LastRunOutCome)**  
"
    } 
    
    $Text = @"
# **$SqlInstance**   
## **$JobName**  

$jobstepMsg

Started at $JobStartDate 
- The individual Job Steps status was  

$JobStepStatus  


"@

    if (( $jobsteps | Where id -ne $lastjobstepid).LastRunOutcome -contains 'Failed') {
        $JSONBody = [PSCustomObject][Ordered]@{
            "@type"      = "MessageCard"
            "@context"   = "http://schema.org/extensions"
            "summary"    = "There was a Job Failure"
            "themeColor" = '0078D7'
            "sections"   = @(
                @{
                    "activityTitle"    = "The Job Failed"
                    "activitySubtitle" = "Work to do - Please investigate the following job by following the steps in the plan at LINKTOPLAN"
                    "activityImage"    = "https://fit93a.db.files.1drv.com/y4mTOWSzX1AfIWx-VdUgY_Qp3wqebttT7FWSvtKK-zAbpTJuU560Qccv1_Z_Oxd4T4zUtd5oVZGJeS17fkgbl1dXUmvbldnGcoThL-bnQYxrTrMkrJS1Wz2ZRV5RVtZS9f4GleZQOMuWXP1HMYSjYxa6w09nEyGg1masI-wKIZfdnEF6L8r83Q9BB7yIjlp6OXEmccZt99gpb4Qti9sIFNxpg"
                    "text"             = $text
                    "markdown"         = $true
                }
            )
        }
    }
    else {
        $JSONBody = [PSCustomObject][Ordered]@{
            "@type"      = "MessageCard"
            "@context"   = "http://schema.org/extensions"
            "summary"    = "The Job Succeeded"
            "themeColor" = '0078D7'
            "sections"   = @(
                @{
                    "activityTitle"    = "The Job Succeeded"
                    "activitySubtitle" = "All is well - Please continue with the next step in the plan at LINKTOPLAN"
                    "activityImage"    = "https://6f0bzw.db.files.1drv.com/y4mvnTDG9bCgNWTZ-2_DFl4-ZsUwpD9QIHUArsGF66H69zBO8a--FlflXiF7lrL2H3vgya0ogXIDx59hn62wo2tt3HWMbqnnCSp8yPmM1IFNwZMzgvSZBEs_n9B0v4h4M5PfOY45GVSjeFh8md140gWHaFpZoL4Vwh-fD7Zi3djU_r0PduZwNBVGOcoB6SMJ1m4NmMmemWr2lzBn57LutDkxw"
                    "text"             = $text
                    "markdown"         = $true
                }
            )
        }
    }

    $TeamMessageBody = ConvertTo-Json $JSONBody -Depth 100
 
    $NotifyCommand = {
    $parameters = @{
        "URI"         = $Using:webhookurl
        "Method"      = 'POST'
        "Body"        = $Using:TeamMessageBody
        "ContentType" = 'application/json'
    }
 
    Invoke-RestMethod @parameters
}
    $Session = New-PSSession -ComputerName $NotifyServer
    Invoke-Command -Session $Session -ScriptBlock $NotifyCommand
}

$msg = 'ServerName  = ' + $SQLInstance + 'JobId = ' + $JobID
Write-Host $msg
Notify-TeamsSQLAgentJob -SQlInstance $SqlInstance -JobID $JobID -webhookurl $webhookurl

Then it can be called in a SQL Agent job step, again following the guidelines at dbatools.io/agent

It is called slightly differently as you ned to pass in the SQL Agent tokens as parameters to the script

powershell.exe -File path to Notify-TeamsSQLAgentJob.ps1 -SQLInstance  $(ESCAPE_SQUOTE(SRVR)) -JobID  $(ESCAPE_NONE(JOBID))

SQL Agent Job Step Success and Failure

We need to take another step to ensure that this works as expected. We have to change the On Failure action for each job step to the “Go To Notify Teams” step

Making people smile

You can also add images (make sure the usage rights allow) so that the success notification can look like this

and the failure looks like this

Happy Automating !

Here is the code that does not require remoting to another server to send the message

Param(
    $SqlInstance,
    $JobID
)

$webhookurl = "https://outlook.office.com/webhook/5a8057cd-5e1a-4c84-9227-74a309f1c738@b122247e-1ebf-4b52-b309-c2aa7436fc6b/IncomingWebhook/affb85f05804438eb7ffb57665879248/f32fc7e6-a998-4670-8b33-635876559b80"

function Notify-TeamsSQlAgentJob {
    Param(
        $SQLInstance,
        $JobID,
        $webhookurl
    )

    $SQLInstance = $SQLInstance 
    # Import-Module 'C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\dbatools\1.0.107\dbatools.psd1'
    [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = { $true }
    [Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

    $CharArray = $JobID.ToCharArray()

    $JobGUID = $CharArray[8] + $CharArray[9] + $CharArray[6] + $CharArray[7] + $CharArray[4] + $CharArray[5] + $CharArray[2] + $CharArray[3] + '-' + $CharArray[12] + $CharArray[13] + $CharArray[10] + $CharArray[11] + '-' + $CharArray[16] + $CharArray[17] + $CharArray[14] + $CharArray[15] + '-' + $CharArray[18] + $CharArray[19] + $CharArray[20] + $CharArray[21] + '-' + $CharArray[22] + $CharArray[23] + $CharArray[24] + $CharArray[25] + $CharArray[26] + $CharArray[27] + $CharArray[28] + $CharArray[29] + $CharArray[30] + $CharArray[31] + $CharArray[32] + $CharArray[33]

    $Job = Get-DbaAgentJob -SQlInstance $SQLInstance | Where jobid -eq $JobGuiD
    $JobName = $Job.Name
    $Jobsteps = Get-DbaAgentJobStep -SQlInstance $SQLInstance -Job $JobName

    $JobStepNames = $Jobsteps.Name -join ' , '
    $JobStartDate = $job.JobSteps[0].LastRunDate
    $JobStatus = $job.LastRunOutcome
    $lastjobstepid = $jobsteps[-1].id
    $Jobstepsmsg = $Jobsteps | Out-String
    $JobStepStatus = ($Jobsteps | Where-Object {$_.id -ne $lastjobstepid -and $_.LastRunDate -ge $JobStartDate} ).ForEach{
        "   $($_.Name)  - $($_.LastRunDate) **$($_.LastRunOutCome)**  
"
    } 
    
    $Text = @"
# **$SqlInstance**   
## **$JobName**  

$jobstepMsg

Started at $JobStartDate 
- The individual Job Steps status was  

$JobStepStatus  


"@

    if (( $jobsteps | Where id -ne $lastjobstepid).LastRunOutcome -contains 'Failed') {
        $JSONBody = [PSCustomObject][Ordered]@{
            "@type"      = "MessageCard"
            "@context"   = "http://schema.org/extensions"
            "summary"    = "There was a Job Failure"
            "themeColor" = '0078D7'
            "sections"   = @(
                @{
                    "activityTitle"    = "The Job Failed"
                    "activitySubtitle" = "Work to do - Please investigate the following job by following the steps in the plan at LINKTOPLAN"
                    "activityImage"    = "https://fit93a.db.files.1drv.com/y4mTOWSzX1AfIWx-VdUgY_Qp3wqebttT7FWSvtKK-zAbpTJuU560Qccv1_Z_Oxd4T4zUtd5oVZGJeS17fkgbl1dXUmvbldnGcoThL-bnQYxrTrMkrJS1Wz2ZRV5RVtZS9f4GleZQOMuWXP1HMYSjYxa6w09nEyGg1masI-wKIZfdnEF6L8r83Q9BB7yIjlp6OXEmccZt99gpb4Qti9sIFNxpg"
                    "text"             = $text
                    "markdown"         = $true
                }
            )
        }
    }
    else {
        $JSONBody = [PSCustomObject][Ordered]@{
            "@type"      = "MessageCard"
            "@context"   = "http://schema.org/extensions"
            "summary"    = "The Job Succeeded"
            "themeColor" = '0078D7'
            "sections"   = @(
                @{
                    "activityTitle"    = "The Job Succeeded"
                    "activitySubtitle" = "All is well - Please continue with the next step in the plan at LINKTOPLAN"
                    "activityImage"    = "https://6f0bzw.db.files.1drv.com/y4mvnTDG9bCgNWTZ-2_DFl4-ZsUwpD9QIHUArsGF66H69zBO8a--FlflXiF7lrL2H3vgya0ogXIDx59hn62wo2tt3HWMbqnnCSp8yPmM1IFNwZMzgvSZBEs_n9B0v4h4M5PfOY45GVSjeFh8md140gWHaFpZoL4Vwh-fD7Zi3djU_r0PduZwNBVGOcoB6SMJ1m4NmMmemWr2lzBn57LutDkxw"
                    "text"             = $text
                    "markdown"         = $true
                }
            )
        }
    }

    $TeamMessageBody = ConvertTo-Json $JSONBody -Depth 100
 
    $parameters = @{
        "URI"         = $webhookurl
        "Method"      = 'POST'
        "Body"        = $TeamMessageBody
        "ContentType" = 'application/json'
    }
 
    Invoke-RestMethod @parameters
}

$msg = 'ServerName  = ' + $SQLInstance + 'JobId = ' + $JobID
Write-Host $msg
Notify-TeamsSQLAgentJob -SQlInstance $SqlInstance -JobID $JobID -webhookurl $webhookurl

Sending a SQL Agent Job results overview to a Microsoft Teams Channel

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Microsoft Teams is fantastic for collaboration. It enables groups of people, teams if you like to be able to communicate, collaborate on documents, hold meetings and much much more.

SQL Agent Job Overview

Using dbatools we can create a simple script to gather the results of Agent Jobs form a list of instances. Maybe it would be good to be able to get the job runs results every 12 hours so that at 6am in the morning the early-bird DBA can quickly identify if there are any failures that need immediate action and at 6pm , the team can check that everything was ok before they clock off.

Here is an example of such a script

$SqlInstances = (Get-Vm -ComputerName BEARDNUC,BEARDNUC2).Where{$_.State -eq 'Running' -and $_.Name -like '*SQL*'}.Name
$AllJobs = "
SqlInstance...|...Total...|...Successful...|...FailedJobs...|...FailedSteps...|...Canceled...     
---------------------------------------------  
"
foreach ($Instance in $SQLInstances) {
    Write-Host "Connecting to $instance"
    try{
        $smo = Connect-DbaInstance $Instance -ErrorAction Stop
        Write-Host "Connected successfully to $instance"
    }
    catch{
        Write-Host "Failed to connect to $Instance" 
        $errorMessage = $_ | Out-String
        Write-Host $errorMessage
        Continue
    }

    Write-Host "Getting Agent Jobs on $instance"
    try {
        $AgentJobs = Get-DbaAgentJobHistory -SqlInstance $smo -EnableException -StartDate $startdate 
        Write-Host "Successfully got Agent Jobs on $instance"
    }
    catch {
        Write-Host "Failed to get agent jobs on $Instance" 
        $errorMessage = $_ | Out-String
        Write-Host $errorMessage
        Continue
    }
    

    $jobs = $agentJobs 
    $NumberOfJobs = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -eq 0}).Count.ToString("00")
    $NumberOfFailedJobs = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -eq 0}|  Where-Object {$PSItem.Status -eq 'Failed'}).StepName.Count.ToString("00")
    $NumberOfFailedJobSteps = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -ne 0}|  Where-Object {$PSItem.Status -eq 'Failed'}).StepName.Count.ToString("00")
    $NumberOfSuccessfulJobs = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -eq 0} | Where-Object {$PSItem.Status -eq 'Succeeded'}).StepName.Count.ToString("00")
    $NumberOfCanceledJobs = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -eq 0} | Where-Object {$PSItem.Status -eq 'Canceled'}).StepName.Count.ToString("00")

     Write-Host "SqlInstance $Instance - Number of Jobs $NumberOfJobs - Number of Successful Jobs $NumberOfSuccessfulJobs  - Number of Failed Jobs $NumberOfFailedJobs"

    $AllJobs = $AllJobs + "$($Instance.Split('.')[0])..........<b>$NumberOfJobs</b>................<b>$NumberOfSuccessfulJobs</b>.........................<b>$NumberOfFailedJobs</b>............................<b>$NumberOfFailedJobSteps</b>..............................<b>$NumberOfCanceledJobs</b>........
"
    try{
        $smo.ConnectionContext.Disconnect()
        Write-Host "Disconnecting $instance"
    }
    catch{
        Write-Host "Failed disconnect from  $Instance" 
        $errorMessage = $_ | Out-String
        Write-Host $errorMessage
        Continue
    }

}

Write-Host "Since $startdate"
Write-Host "$AllJobs"

and an example of running it.

Create a Teams Channel

If you have permissions, you can create a new Teams channel by clicking on the 3 ellipses and add channel

Then fill in the blanks

Create a Webhook Connector for the channel

Next, you need to have a connector for the channel, click on the 3 ellipses for the channel and click on connectors

Then you can choose the Incoming Webhook connector and click configure

Give the connector a name and upload an image if you wish and click create

The resulting screen will give you a URL that you can copy. If you need to find it again, then use the 3 ellipses again, click connectors and look at configured. You can then choose the webhook that you have created and click manage and you will find the URL.

Send to Teams using PowerShell

Now you can send a message to that Teams channel using PowerShell. You will need to add the webhook URL from your Teams connector

[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = { $true }
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
$webhookurl = ""

    $Text =  @"
# Here is a Title

and a message

Image is from

https://www.flickr.com/photos/157270154@N05/38494483572

Photo by CreditDebitPro
"@

    $JSONBody = [PSCustomObject][Ordered]@{
        "@type"      = "MessageCard"
        "@context"   = "http://schema.org/extensions"
        "summary"    = "This is my summary"
        "themeColor" = '0078D7'
        "sections"   = @(
            @{
                "activityTitle"    = "Something Important "
                "activitySubtitle" = "I have something to say"
                "activityImage"    = "https://live.staticflickr.com/4568/38494483572_a98d623854_k.jpg"
                "text"             = $text
                "markdown"         = $true
            }
        )
    }
 
    $TeamMessageBody = ConvertTo-Json $JSONBody -Depth 100
 
    $parameters = @{
        "URI"         = $webhookurl
        "Method"      = 'POST'
        "Body"        = $TeamMessageBody
        "ContentType" = 'application/json'
    }
 
    Invoke-RestMethod @parameters

The code above will send a message that looks like this

Running as a SQL Agent Job

Now we can run this code as a SQL Agent Job and schedule it. Now, you may not be able to run that code on your SQL Server. It cannot connect to the internet, so how can we contact the Teams webhook?

There are probably a number of ways to do this but the solution that I took, was to allow a proxy account the ability to use PSRemoting and run the part of the script that connects to Teams on a different machine, that does have connectivity.

The script I used was as follows. You will need to add in the SQL Instances or better still dynamically gather them from your source of truth. You will need the webhook URL and the name of the server that can connect to Teams

$SQLInstances = 'SQL2005Ser2003','SQL2008Ser12R2','SQL2014Ser12R2','SQL2016N1','SQL2016N2','SQL2016N3','SQL2017N5','SQL2019N20','SQL2019N21','SQL2019N22','SQL2019N5'

$startdate = (Get-Date).AddHours(-12)
$webhookurl = ""
$NotifyServer = 'BeardNUC2'

$AllJobs = "
SqlInstance...|...Total...|...Successful...|...FailedJobs...|...FailedSteps...|...Canceled...     
---------------------------------------------  
"
foreach ($Instance in $SQLInstances) {
    Write-Host "Connecting to $instance"
    try{
        $smo = Connect-DbaInstance $Instance -ErrorAction Stop
        Write-Host "Connected successfully to $instance"
    }
    catch{
        Write-Host "Failed to connect to $Instance" 
        $errorMessage = $_ | Out-String
        Write-Host $errorMessage
        Continue
    }

    Write-Host "Getting Agent Jobs on $instance"
    try {
        $AgentJobs = Get-DbaAgentJobHistory -SqlInstance $smo -EnableException -StartDate $startdate 
        Write-Host "Successfully got Agent Jobs on $instance"
    }
    catch {
        Write-Host "Failed to get agent jobs on $Instance" 
        $errorMessage = $_ | Out-String
        Write-Host $errorMessage
        Continue
    }
    

    $jobs = $agentJobs 
    $NumberOfJobs = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -eq 0}).Count.ToString("00")
    $NumberOfFailedJobs = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -eq 0}|  Where-Object {$PSItem.Status -eq 'Failed'}).StepName.Count.ToString("00")
    $NumberOfFailedJobSteps = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -ne 0}|  Where-Object {$PSItem.Status -eq 'Failed'}).StepName.Count.ToString("00")
    $NumberOfSuccessfulJobs = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -eq 0} | Where-Object {$PSItem.Status -eq 'Succeeded'}).StepName.Count.ToString("00")
    $NumberOfCanceledJobs = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -eq 0} | Where-Object {$PSItem.Status -eq 'Canceled'}).StepName.Count.ToString("00")

     Write-Host "SqlInstance $Instance - Number of Jobs $NumberOfJobs - Number of Successful Jobs $NumberOfSuccessfulJobs  - Number of Failed Jobs $NumberOfFailedJobs"

    $AllJobs = $AllJobs + "$($Instance.Split('.')[0])..........<b>$NumberOfJobs</b>................<b>$NumberOfSuccessfulJobs</b>.........................<b>$NumberOfFailedJobs</b>............................<b>$NumberOfFailedJobSteps</b>..............................<b>$NumberOfCanceledJobs</b>........
"
    try{
        $smo.ConnectionContext.Disconnect()
        Write-Host "Disconnecting $instance"
    }
    catch{
        Write-Host "Failed disconnect from  $Instance" 
        $errorMessage = $_ | Out-String
        Write-Host $errorMessage
        Continue
    }

}

Write-Host "Since $startdate"
Write-Host "$AllJobs"

$NotifyCommand = {
[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = { $true }
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
$webhookurl = $Using:TeamsWebhook
 
$allJobsMessage = $Using:AllJobs 
    $Text =  @"
# Overview of SQL Agent Jobs in Production since $($Using:startdate)  

$allJobsMessage
"@

    $JSONBody = [PSCustomObject][Ordered]@{
        "@type"      = "MessageCard"
        "@context"   = "http://schema.org/extensions"
        "summary"    = "Overview for the last 12 hours"
        "themeColor" = '0078D7'
        "sections"   = @(
            @{
                "activityTitle"    = "Job Failures "
                "activitySubtitle" = "Overview for the last 12 hours since $($Using:startdate)"
                "activityImage"    = "https://live.staticflickr.com/4568/38494483572_a98d623854_k.jpg"
                "text"             = $allJobsMessage
                "markdown"         = $true
            }
        )
    }
 
    $TeamMessageBody = ConvertTo-Json $JSONBody -Depth 100
 
    $parameters = @{
        "URI"         = $webhookurl
        "Method"      = 'POST'
        "Body"        = $TeamMessageBody
        "ContentType" = 'application/json'
    }
 
    Invoke-RestMethod @parameters
}

$Session = New-PSSession -ComputerName $NotifyServer
Invoke-Command -Session $Session -ScriptBlock $NotifyCommand

Then, follow the steps at dbatools.io/agent to create an agent job to run the script above on an instance with the dbatools module available to the SQL Service account. Use or create a proxy with permissions on the notify server and create an Agent Job.

USE [msdb]
GO

/****** Object:  Job [I am a Job that notifies Teams]    Script Date: 27/07/2020 20:27:27 ******/
BEGIN TRANSACTION
DECLARE @ReturnCode INT
SELECT @ReturnCode = 0
/****** Object:  JobCategory [[Uncategorized (Local)]]    Script Date: 27/07/2020 20:27:28 ******/
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT name FROM msdb.dbo.syscategories WHERE name=N'[Uncategorized (Local)]' AND category_class=1)
BEGIN
EXEC @ReturnCode = msdb.dbo.sp_add_category @class=N'JOB', @type=N'LOCAL', @name=N'[Uncategorized (Local)]'
IF (@@ERROR <> 0 OR @ReturnCode <> 0) GOTO QuitWithRollback

END

DECLARE @jobId BINARY(16)
EXEC @ReturnCode =  msdb.dbo.sp_add_job @job_name=N'12 Hour Teams Notify', 
		@enabled=1, 
		@notify_level_eventlog=0, 
		@notify_level_email=0, 
		@notify_level_netsend=0, 
		@notify_level_page=0, 
		@delete_level=0, 
		@description=N'This job will notify Teams every 12 hours', 
		@category_name=N'[Uncategorized (Local)]', 
		@owner_login_name=N'THEBEARD\SQL_SVC', @job_id = @jobId OUTPUT
IF (@@ERROR <> 0 OR @ReturnCode <> 0) GOTO QuitWithRollback

/****** Object:  Step [Notify Teams]    Script Date: 27/07/2020 20:27:28 ******/
EXEC @ReturnCode = msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobstep @job_id=@jobId, @step_name=N'Notify Teams', 
		@step_id=1, 
		@cmdexec_success_code=0, 
		@on_success_action=1, 
		@on_success_step_id=0, 
		@on_fail_action=2, 
		@on_fail_step_id=0, 
		@retry_attempts=0, 
		@retry_interval=0, 
		@os_run_priority=0, @subsystem=N'CmdExec', 
		@command=N'powershell.exe -File C:\temp\AgentJobs\NotifyTeams.ps1', 
		@flags=0, 
		@proxy_name=N'TheBeardIsMighty'
IF (@@ERROR <> 0 OR @ReturnCode <> 0) GOTO QuitWithRollback
EXEC @ReturnCode = msdb.dbo.sp_update_job @job_id = @jobId, @start_step_id = 1
IF (@@ERROR <> 0 OR @ReturnCode <> 0) GOTO QuitWithRollback
EXEC @ReturnCode = msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobserver @job_id = @jobId, @server_name = N'(local)'
IF (@@ERROR <> 0 OR @ReturnCode <> 0) GOTO QuitWithRollback
COMMIT TRANSACTION
GOTO EndSave
QuitWithRollback:
    IF (@@TRANCOUNT > 0) ROLLBACK TRANSACTION
EndSave:
GO

When the job runs

The results are posted to the Teams Channel

If you can run the Agent Job on a machine that can connect to Teams and your SQL Instances then you can remove the need to use a remote session by using this code

$SQLInstances = 'SQL2005Ser2003','SQL2008Ser12R2','SQL2014Ser12R2','SQL2016N1','SQL2016N2','SQL2016N3','SQL2017N5','SQL2019N20','SQL2019N21','SQL2019N22','SQL2019N5'

$startdate = (Get-Date).AddHours(-12)
$webhookurl = ""


# Import-Module 'C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\dbatools\1.0.107\dbatools.psd1'
$AllJobs = "
SqlInstance...|...Total...|...Successful...|...FailedJobs...|...FailedSteps...|...Canceled...     
---------------------------------------------  
"
foreach ($Instance in $SQLInstances) {
    Write-Host "Connecting to $instance"
    try{
        $smo = Connect-DbaInstance $Instance -ErrorAction Stop
        Write-Host "Connected successfully to $instance"
    }
    catch{
        Write-Host "Failed to connect to $Instance" 
        $errorMessage = $_ | Out-String
        Write-Host $errorMessage
        Continue
    }

    Write-Host "Getting Agent Jobs on $instance"
    try {
        $AgentJobs = Get-DbaAgentJobHistory -SqlInstance $smo -EnableException -StartDate $startdate 
        Write-Host "Successfully got Agent Jobs on $instance"
    }
    catch {
        Write-Host "Failed to get agent jobs on $Instance" 
        $errorMessage = $_ | Out-String
        Write-Host $errorMessage
        Continue
    }
    

    $jobs = $agentJobs 
    $NumberOfJobs = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -eq 0}).Count.ToString("00")
    $NumberOfFailedJobs = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -eq 0}|  Where-Object {$PSItem.Status -eq 'Failed'}).StepName.Count.ToString("00")
    $NumberOfFailedJobSteps = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -ne 0}|  Where-Object {$PSItem.Status -eq 'Failed'}).StepName.Count.ToString("00")
    $NumberOfSuccessfulJobs = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -eq 0} | Where-Object {$PSItem.Status -eq 'Succeeded'}).StepName.Count.ToString("00")
    $NumberOfCanceledJobs = ($Jobs |Where-Object {$PSitem.StepId -eq 0} | Where-Object {$PSItem.Status -eq 'Canceled'}).StepName.Count.ToString("00")

     Write-Host "SqlInstance $Instance - Number of Jobs $NumberOfJobs - Number of Successful Jobs $NumberOfSuccessfulJobs  - Number of Failed Jobs $NumberOfFailedJobs"

    $AllJobs = $AllJobs + "$($Instance.Split('.')[0])..........<b>$NumberOfJobs</b>................<b>$NumberOfSuccessfulJobs</b>.........................<b>$NumberOfFailedJobs</b>............................<b>$NumberOfFailedJobSteps</b>..............................<b>$NumberOfCanceledJobs</b>........
"
    try{
        $smo.ConnectionContext.Disconnect()
        Write-Host "Disconnecting $instance"
    }
    catch{
        Write-Host "Failed disconnect from  $Instance" 
        $errorMessage = $_ | Out-String
        Write-Host $errorMessage
        Continue
    }

}

Write-Host "Since $startdate"
Write-Host "$AllJobs"

[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = { $true }
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
 
$allJobsMessage = $AllJobs 
    $Text =  @"
# Overview of SQL Agent Jobs in Production since $($startdate)  

$allJobsMessage
"@

    $JSONBody = [PSCustomObject][Ordered]@{
        "@type"      = "MessageCard"
        "@context"   = "http://schema.org/extensions"
        "summary"    = "Overview for the last 12 hours"
        "themeColor" = '0078D7'
        "sections"   = @(
            @{
                "activityTitle"    = "Job Results "
                "activitySubtitle" = "Overview for the last 12 hours since $($startdate)"
                "activityImage"    = "https://live.staticflickr.com/4568/38494483572_a98d623854_k.jpg"
                "text"             = $allJobsMessage
                "markdown"         = $true
            }
        )
    }
 
    $TeamMessageBody = ConvertTo-Json $JSONBody -Depth 100
 
    $parameters = @{
        "URI"         = $webhookurl
        "Method"      = 'POST'
        "Body"        = $TeamMessageBody
        "ContentType" = 'application/json'
    }
 
    Invoke-RestMethod @parameters

Happy automating!

Using Secret Management module to run SSMS, VS Code and Azure Data Studio as another user

Posted on by

Following on from my last post about the Secret Management module. I was asked another question.

> Can I use this to run applications as my admin account?

A user with a beard

It is good practice to not log into your work station with an account with admin privileges. In many shops, you will need to open applications that can do administration tasks with another set of account credentials.

Unfortunately, people being people, they will often store their admin account credentials in a less than ideal manner (OneNote, Notepad ++ etc) to make it easier for them, so that when they right click and run as a different user, they can copy and paste the password.

Use the Secret Management module

Again, I decided to use a notebook to show this as it is a fantastic way to share code and results and because it means that anyone can try it out.

The notebook may not render on a mobile device.

Using the notebook, I can quickly store my admin password safely and open and run the applications using the credential

Good Bye Import-CliXML – Use the Secrets Management module for your labs and demos

Posted on by

Don’t want to read all this? There are two dotnet interactive notebooks here with the relevant information for you to use.

https://beard.media/dotnetnotebooks

Jaap is awesome

I have to start here. For the longest time, whenever anyone has asked me how I store my credentials for use in my demos and labs I have always referred them to Jaap Brassers t blog post

https://www.jaapbrasser.com/quickly-and-securely-storing-your-credentials-powershell/

Joel is also awesome!

When people wanted a method of storing credentials that didnt involve files on disk I would suggest Joel Bennett’s t module BetterCredentials which uses the Windows Credential Manager

https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/BetterCredentials/4.5

Microsoft? Also awesome!

In February, Microsoft released the SecretManagement module for preview.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/secrets-management-development-release/

Sydney t gave a presentation at the European PowerShell Conference which you can watch on Youtube.

Good Bye Import-CliXML

So now I say, it is time to stop using Import-Clixml for storing secrets and use the Microsoft.PowerShell.SecretsManagement module instead for storing your secrets.

Notebooks are as good as blog posts

I love notebooks and to show some people who had asked about storing secrets, I have created some. So, because I am efficient lazy I have embedded them here for you to see. You can find them in my Jupyter Notebook repository

https://beard.media/dotnetnotebooks

in the Secrets folder

Installing and using the Secrets Management Module

These notebooks may not display on a mobile device unfortunately

Using the Secret Management Module in your scripts

Here is a simple example of using the module to provide the credential for a docker container and then to dbatools to query the container

These notebooks may not display on a mobile device unfortunately

New .NET Notebooks are here – PowerShell 7 notebooks are here.

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Data Science folk used Notebooks for documentation and to show re-runnable research. Azure Data Studio included this notebook functionality and added SQL kernel where with a little bit of faffing you could run PowerShell and then a Python kernel that enabled PowerShell. It seems that notebooks are so cool that everyone is creating them these days! I was browsing twitter when I saw this tweet.

https://twitter.com/LadyNaggaga/status/1225464258823163906?s=20

PowerShell 7 Notebooks 🙂

A notebook experience for PowerShell 7 that sounds amazing. This will enable a true cross-platform PowerShell Notebook experience which is lacking from the Python version as it uses Windows PowerShell on Windows and PowerShell Core on other OS’s

The first thing I asked was – Will this come to Azure Data Studio. I got an immediate response from Sydney Smith PowerShell Program Manager saying it is on the roadmap

Install dependencies

To be able to run the notebook, you need to install some dependencies. First install the .NET CORE SDK which you can download from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download This needs admin permissions to install.

You also need a Python installation – You can use Anaconda, which you can download from here https://www.anaconda.com/distribution/ This does not need admin to install

Add Anaconda to Windows Terminal

I have added the Anaconda prompt to Windows Terminal so that I have one entry point for all my CLIs. Open the settings file and add the code below. (It will also give you an icon and background.

        {
            // Make changes here to the Anaconda.exe profile
            "guid": "{0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a7ff-afceeeaa6101}",
            "name": "Anaconda",
            "commandline": "cmd.exe /K C:\\Users\\mrrob\\Anaconda3\\Scripts\\activate.bat",
            "hidden": false,
            "backgroundImage": "C:\\Users\\mrrob\\Anaconda3\\Menu\\anaconda-navigator.ico",
            "icon": "C:\\Users\\mrrob\\Anaconda3\\Menu\\anaconda-navigator.ico",
            "backgroundImageAlignment": "topRight",
            "backgroundImageStretchMode": "uniform",
            "backgroundImageOpacity": 0.1
        }

and it appears in the drop down

With Anaconda installed, check that that the kernel is available on your path. If like me you have Azure Data Studio installed, you will have additional kernels but the important one line here is

python3 C:\Users\USERNAME\Anaconda3\share\jupyter\kernels\python3

In Windows Terminal move to a PowerShell 7 prompt and install the dotnet interactive tool

dotnet tool install --global Microsoft.dotnet-interactive

Then you can install the .NET kernel in your Anaconda prompt using this command

dotnet interactive jupyter install

Sometimes new things have errors

I had an error when I tried this first time

Could not execute because the specified command or file was not found.
Possible reasons for this include:
* You misspelled a built-in dotnet command.
* You intended to execute a .NET Core program, but dotnet-interactive does not exist.
* You intended to run a global tool, but a dotnet-prefixed executable with this name could not be found on the PATH.

This is easily fixed by adding %USERPROFILE%\.dotnet\tools to my path with set PATH=%PATH%;%USERPROFILE%\.dotnet\tools

Running jupyter kernelspec list shows that the .NET kernel is installed for C Sharp, F Sharp and .NET PowerShell

Lets open a Notebook

Now you want to play with it!
You can run the lab environment using `jupyter lab`

This opens a browser

You can open existing Azure Data Studio PowerShell notebooks (but not SQL ones)

Sometimes new things have errors Part 2

Unfortunately, I get errors when trying to import Pester which means I can not use my dbachecks notebooks in this blog post. I have raised an issue on the repo here.

Create a New Notebook

But it is easy to create a new Notebook

In the launcher page click the .NET PowerShell button


Which will open a new Notebook in the directory that you launched the lab from. You can then add Code or Markdown as I have described before here.

Then you can add code, markdown and images to create your notebook.

Once you have finished using the notebook lab, you can shut it down in the Anaconda prompt with CTRL + C

Here is a video of running a notebook which anyone can use to create a couple of Docker containers running SQL 2019 and query them with dbatools. You can find the notebook further down this post.

Sharing Notebooks

You can create notebooks to run common tasks. Even better, from the lab you can convert the notebook including the results to a variety of formats to share with other none-technical people. I used this functionality this week to export Azure Data Studio Notebooks to HTML and PDF for a Project manager 🙂

You can find the Export Notebook command in the File menu

Exporting to HTML did not export the images but it does include the results

You can share notebooks via GitHub – Either in a gist like this

or by providing a straight link to the notebook in GitHub https://github.com/SQLDBAWithABeard/Notebooks/blob/master/notebooks/Exploring%20dbatools.ipynb

You can also use Binder https://mybinder.org/

This uses Docker to create an interactive Notebook. Create a Github repo like https://github.com/SQLDBAWithABeard/Notebooks (or just clone it) Copy your notebooks into the notebooks folder and push the changes to Github and then go to https://mybinder.org/ and add your URL to the repository.

You can see what it looks like by clicking the button below which Binder creates for you

Unfortunately the kernel only supports Python for the moment but you can see the possibilities 🙂

How to fork a GitHub repository and contribute to an open source project

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I enjoying maintaining open source GitHub repositories such as dbachecks and ADSNotebook. I absolutely love it when people add more functionality to them.

To collaborate with a repository in GitHub you need to follow these steps

  • Fork the repository into your own GitHub
  • Clone the repository to your local machine
  • Create a new branch for your changes
  • Make some changes and commit them with useful messages
  • Push the changes to your repository
  • Create a Pull Request from your repository back to the original one

You will need to have git.exe available which you can download and install from https://git-scm.com/downloads if required

Fork the repository into your own GitHub

A fork is a copy of the original repository. This allows you to make changes without affecting the original project. It does not get updated when the original project gets updated (We will talk about that in the next post) This enables you to code a new feature or a bug fix, test it locally and make sure it is working.

Let’s take dbachecks as our example. Start by going to the project in GiHub. In this case the URL is https://github.com/sqlcollaborative/dbachecks You will see a Fork button at the top right of the page

When you click the button the repository is copied into your own GitHub account

The page will open at https://github.com/YOURGITHUBUSERNAME/NameOfRepository in this case https://github.com/SQLDBAWithABeard/dbachecks You will be able to see that it is a fork of the original repository at the top of the page

Clone the repository to your local machine

Forking the repository has created a remote repository stored on the GitHub servers. Now that the repository has been forked you need to clone it to your local machine to create a local repository so that you can start coding your amazing fix. When you have finished you can then sync it back to your remote repository ready for a Pull Request back to the original repository.

In your browser, at your remote repository that you just created (https://github.com/YOURGITHUBUSERNAME/NameOfRepository if you have closed the page) click on Clone or Download and then the icon to the right to copy the url

You can clone your repository in VS Code or Azure Data Studio by clicking F1 or CTRL + SHIFT + P in Windows or Linux and ⇧⌘P or F1 on a Mac

then start typing clone until you see Git:Clone and press enter or click

Paste in the URL that you just copied and click enter. A dialog will open asking you to select a folder. This is the parent directory where your local repository will be created. The clone will create a directory for your repository so you do not need to. I suggest that you use a folder called GitHub or something similar to place all of the repositories that you are going to clone and create.

When it has finished it will ask you if you wish to open the repository

if you click Open it will close anything that you have already got opened and open the folder. If you click Add to Workspace it will add the folder to the workspace and leave everything you already had open as it was and surprisingly clicking Open in New Window will open the folder in a new instance of Visual Studio Code or Azure Data Studio!

and you will also be able to see the local repository files on your computer

You can clone the repository at the command line if you wish by navigating to your local GitHub directory and running git clone TheURLYouCopied

Now your local repository has been created, it’s time to do your magic coding.

Create a new branch for your changes

It is a good idea to create a branch for your amazing new feature This enables you to work on coding for that feature in isolation. It has the added advantage that if you mess it right royally up, you can just delete that branch and start again with a new one!

To create a branch in VS Code or Azure Data Studio you can click on the branch name at the bottom left.

Or open the Command Palette and type Branch until you see Git: Create Branch

You will be prompted for a branch name

I like to choose a name that relates to the code that I am writing like configurable_engine or removeerroringexample You can see the name of the branch in the bottom left so that you always know which branch you are working on.

The icon shows that the branch is only local and hasn’t been pushed (published) to the remote repository yet

Make some changes and commit them with useful messages

Now you can start writing your code for your awesome new feature, bug fix or maybe just documentation improvement. Keep your commits small and give them useful commit messages that explain why you have made the change as the diff tooling will be able to show what change you have made

Write your code or change the documentation, save the file and in Visual Studio Code or Azure Data Studio you will see that the source control icon has a number on it

Clicking on the icon will show the files that have changes ready

You can write your commit message in the box and click CTRL + ENTER to commit your changes with a message

If you want to do this at the command line, you can use git status to see which files have changes

You will need to git add .or git add .\pathtofile to stage your changes ready for committing and then git commit -m 'Commit Message' to commit them

Notice that I did exactly what I just said not to do! A better commit message would have been So that people can find the guide to forking and creating a PR

Push the changes to your repository

You only have the changes that you have made in your local repository on your computer. Now you need to push those changes to Github your remote repository. You can click on the publish icon

You will get a pop-up asking you if you wish to stage your changes. I click Yes and never Always so that I can use this prompt as a sanity check that I am doing the right thing

At the command line you can push the branch, if you do that, you will have to tell git where the branch needs to go. If you just type git push it will helpfully tell you

fatal: The current branch AwesomeNewFeature has no upstream branch.
To push the current branch and set the remote as upstream, use

    git push --set-upstream origin AwesomeNewFeature

So you will need to use that command

You can see in the bottom left that the icon has changed

and if you read the output of the git push command you will see what the next step is also.

Create a Pull Request from your repository back to the original one

You can CTRL click the link in the git push output if you have pushed from the command line or if you visit either you repository or the original repository in your browser you will see that there is a Compare and Pull Request button

You click that and let GitHub do its magic

and it will create a Pull Request for you ready for you to fill in the required information, ask for reviewers and other options. Once you have done that you can click Create pull request and wait for the project maintainer to review it and (hopefully) accept it into their project

You can find the Pull Request that I created here https://github.com/sqlcollaborative/dbachecks/pull/720 and see how the rest of this blog post was created.

If you make more changes to the code in the same branch in your local repository and push them, they will automatically be added to this Pull Request whilst it is open. You can do this if the maintainer or reviewer asks for changes.

Shane has asked for a change

So I can go to my local repository in Azure Data Studio and make the requested change and save the file. If I look in the source control in Azure Data Studio I can again see there is a change waiting to be committed and if I click on the name of the file I can open the diff tool to see what the change was

Once I am happy with my change I can commit it again in the same way as before either in the editor or at the command line. The icon at the bottom will change to show that I have one commit in my local repository waiting to be pushed

To do the same thing at the command line I can type git status and see the same thing.

I can then push my change to my remote repository either in the GUI or by using git push

and it will automatically be added to the Pull Request as you can see

Now that the required changes for the review have been made, the review has been approved by Shane and the pull request is now ready to be merged. (You can also see that dbachecks runs some checks against the code when a Pull Request is made)

Many, many thanks to Shane b | t who helped with the writing of this post even whilst on a “no tech” holiday.

Go Ahead – Contribute to an Open Source Project

Hopefully you can now see how easy it is to create a fork of a GitHub repository, clone it to your own machine and contribute. There are many open source projects that you can contribute to.

You can use this process to contribute to the Microsoft Docs for example by clicking on the edit button on any page.

You can contribute other open source projects like

or go and find the the ones that you use and can help with.

Create a PowerShell Notebook for Azure Data Studio with PowerShell

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The latest update to the ADSNotebook PowerShell module I blogged about here now enables the creation of PowerShell notebooks with PowerShell.

You can install the module with

Install-Module ADSNotebook

or if you have already installed it you can use

Update-Module ADSNotebook

In the latest release, there is an extra parameter for New-AdsWorkBook of -Type which will accept either SQL or PowerShell

Create a PowerShell Notebook with PowerShell Rob

OK!

Here is some code to create a PowerShell Notebook. First we will create some cells using New-AdsWorkBookCell including all the markdown to add images and links. You can find my notebooks which explain how to write the markdown for your notebooks in my GitHub Presentations Repository

$introCelltext = "# Welcome to my Auto Generated PowerShell Notebook

## dbatools
![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6729780/68845538-7afcd200-06c3-11ea-952e-e4fe72a68fc8.png)  

dbatools is an open-source PowerShell Module for administering SQL Servers.
You can read more about dbatools and find the documentation at [dbatools.io](dbatools.io)
"
$SecondCelltext = "### Installation
You can install dbatools from the PowerShell Gallery using `Install-Module dbatools`
"

$thirdcelltext = "Install-Module dbatools"

$fourthCelltext = "### Getting Help
You should always use `Get-Help` to fins out how to use dbatools (and any PowerShell) commands"

$fifthcelltext = "Get-Help Get-DbaDatabase"
$sixthCelltext = "Try a command now. get the name, owner and collation of the user databases on the local instance"
$seventhCellText = "Get-DbaDatabase -SqlInstance localhost -ExcludeSystem | Select Name, Owner, Collation"

$Intro = New-ADSWorkBookCell -Type Text -Text $introCelltext
$second = New-ADSWorkBookCell -Type Text -Text $SecondCelltext
$third = New-ADSWorkBookCell -Type Code -Text $thirdcelltext
$fourth = New-ADSWorkBookCell -Type Text -Text $fourthCelltext
$fifth = New-ADSWorkBookCell -Type Code -Text $fifthcelltext
$sixth = New-ADSWorkBookCell -Type Text -Text $sixthCelltext
$seventh = New-ADSWorkBookCell -Type Code -Text $seventhCellText

Then we will create a new workbook using those cells

$path = 'C:\temp\dbatools.ipynb'
New-ADSWorkBook -Path $path -cells $Intro,$second,$third,$fourth,$fifth,$sixth,$Seventh -Type PowerShell

Then, when that code is run we can open the Notebook and ta-da

And it is super quick to run as well

UPDATE – Tyler Leonhardt t from the PowerShell team asked

Challenge accepted, with extra meta, here is the PowerShell to create a PowerShell Notebook which will create a PowerShell Notebook!!

PowerShell Notebooks in Azure Data Studio

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The latest release of the insiders edition of Azure Data Studio brings the first edition of PowerShell Notebooks!

You can download the latest insiders edition from the link above, it can be installed alongside the stable release.

To access many of the commands available use F1 to open the command palette (like many of my tips this also works in Visual Studio Code). You can then start typing to get the command that you want.

You can then hit enter with the command that you want highlighted, use the mouse or use the shortcut which is displayed to the right.

In a new notebook, you can click the drop down next to kernel and now you can see that PowerShell is available

When you choose the PowerShell kernel, you will get a prompt asking you to configure the Python installation

If you have Python already installed you can browse to the location that it is installed or you can install Python. In the bottom pane you will be able to see the progress of the installation.

When it has completed, you will see

You may also get a prompt asking if you would like to upgrade some packages

Again this will be displayed in the tasks pane

Adding PowerShell


To add PowerShell Code to the notebook click the Code button at the top of the file

or the one you can find by highlighting above or below a block

I did not have intellisense, but you can easily write your code in Azure Data Studio or Visual Studio Code and paste it in the block.

Interestingly Shawn Melton ( t ) did

https://twitter.com/wsmelton/status/1184819132598013952

This was because he had the PowerShell extension installed and I did not (I know !!)
If you find you dont have intellisense then install the PowerShell extension!

Clicking the play button (which is only visible when you hover the mouse over it) will run the code

You can clear the results from every code block using the clear results button at the top

Otherwise, you can save the results with the Notebook by saving it. This is the part that is missing from running PowerShell in the Markdown blocks in a SQL Notebook as I described here

I am looking forward to how this develops. You can find my sample PowerShell notebook (with the code results) here

PowerShell in SQL Notebooks in Azure Data Studio

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I have done a lot of writing in the last few months but you see no blog posts! My wonderful friend Chrissy and I are writing “dbatools in a Month of Lunches” to be published by Manning. That has taken up a lot of my writing mojo. We have hit a little break whilst we have some reviews done ready for the MEAP (For everyone who asks, the answer is the unfulfilling ‘soon’) so it’s time for a blog post!

SQL Notebooks are cool

I have had a lot of fun with SQL Notebooks recently. I have presented a session about them at a couple of events this month DataGrillen and SQL Saturday Cork. Here is a little snippet

Yes, you can run PowerShell in a SQL Notebook in Azure Data Studio just by clicking a link in the markdown cell. This opens up a lot of excellent possibilities.

I have had several discussions about how SQL Notebooks can be used by SQL DBAs within their normal everyday roles. (Mainly because I don’t really understand what the sorcerers of data science do with notebooks!). I have helped clients to look at some of their processes and use SQL Notebooks to help with them. Creating Disaster Recovery or Change Run-books or Incident Response Templates or using them for product demonstrations. Of course, I needed to use PowerShell in that 🙂

I have really enjoyed working out how to run PowerShell in the markdown in a SQL Notebook in Azure Data Studio and I think Anthony the kubernetes magician did too!

OK enough magic puns lets talk about PowerShell in SQL Notebooks. You can read about how to create a SQL Notebook and run T-SQL queries here, (you no longer need the Insider Edition by the way)

PowerShell in Markdown!

First, before I go any further, I must say this. I was at the European PowerShell Conference when I was working this out and creating my sessions and I said the words

“Cool, I can click a link and run PowerShell, this is neat”

A Beardy fellow in Hannover

This stopped some red team friends of mine in their tracks and they said “Show me”. One of them was rubbing their hands with glee! You can imagine the sort of wicked, devious things that they were immediately considering doing.

Yes, it’s funny but also it carries a serious warning. Without understanding what it is doing, please don’t enable PowerShell to be run in a SQL Notebook that someone sent you in an email or you find on a GitHub. In the same way as you don’t open the word document attachment which will get a thousand million trillion pounddollars into your bank account or run code you copy from the internet on production without understanding what it does, this could be a very dangerous thing to do.

With that warning out of the way, there are loads of really useful and fantastic use cases for this. SQL Notebooks make great run-books or incident response recorders and PowerShell is an obvious tool for this. (If only we could save the PowerShell output in a SQL Notebook, this would be even better)

How on earth did you work this out?

Someone asked me how I worked it out. I didn’t! It began with Vicky Harp PM lead for the SQL Tools team at Microsoft

I then went and looked at Kevin Cunnane‘s notebook. Kevin is a member of the tools team working on Azure Data Studio. With SQL Notebooks, you can double click the markdown cell and see the code that is behind it. To understand how it is working, lets deviate a little.

Keyboard Shortcuts

IF you click the cog at the bottom left of Azure Data Studio and choose Keyboard Shortcuts

you can make Azure Data Studio (and Visual Studio Code) work exactly how you want it to. Typing in the top box will find a command and you can then set the shortcuts that you want to use to save yourself time.

This also enables you to see the command that is called when you use a keyboard shortcut. For example, you can see that for the focus terminal command it says workbench.action.terminal.focus.

It turns out that you can call this as a link in a Markdown document using HTML with <a href=""> and adding command: prior to the command text. When the link is clicked the command will run. Cool 🙂

For this to be able to work (you read the warning above?) you need to set the Notebook to be trusted by clicking this button.

This will allow any command to be run. Of course, people with beards will helpfully advise when this is required for a SQL Notebook. (Safe to say people attempting nefarious actions will try the same with your users)

Now that we know how to run an Azure Data Studio command using a link in a markdown cell the next step is to run a PowerShell command. I headed to the Visual Studio Code documentation and found

Send text from a keybinding
The workbench.action.terminal.sendSequence command can be used to send a specific sequence of text to the terminal, including escape sequence

That’s the command we need, however, we still need to craft the command so that it will work as a link. It needs to be converted into a URL.

I started by using this website https://www.url-encode-decode.com/ to do this. This is how you can check the code in other peoples notebook, use the decode capability.

Encoding Set-Location C:\dbachecks gives Set-Location+C%3A%5Cdbacheck`

So I can just put that code into the href link and bingo!

If only it was that easy!!

Some Replacing is required

The + needs to be replaced with a space or %20

You also need to double the \ and replace the %3A with a :
The " needs to be replaced with \u022, the ' with \u027, the curly braces won’t work unless you remove the %0D%0A. Got all that? Good!

Once you have written your PowerShell, encoded it, performed the replacements, you add \u000D at the end of the code to pass an enter to run the code and then place all of that into a link like this

<a href="command:workbench.action.terminal.sendSequence?%7B%22text%22%3A%22 PLACE THE ENCODED CODE HERE %22%7D">Link Text</a>

This means that if you want to add the PowerShell code to set a location and then list the files and folders in that location to a Markdown cell using PowerShell like this

Set-Location C:\dbachecks
Get-ChildItem

You would end up with a link like this

<a href="command:workbench.action.terminal.sendSequence?%7B%22text%22%3A%22 Set-Location C:%5C%5Cdbachecks \u000D Get-ChildItem \u000D %22%7D">Set Location and list files</a>

Doing something more than once?

I don’t want to remember that all of the time so I wrote a PowerShell function. You can find it on GitHub https://github.com/SQLDBAWithABeard/Functions/blob/master/Convert-ADSPowerShellForMarkdown.ps1

This will take a PowerShell command and turn it into a link that will work in an Azure Data Studio markdown. It’s not magic, it’s PowerShell. There is a –ToClipboard parameter which will copy the code to the clipboard ready for you to paste into the cell (On Windows machines only)

Giants

There are many uses for this but here’s one I think is cool.

The link below will go to a notebook, which will show how you the giants upon whose shoulders I stand

Glenn Berry,
Chrissy LeMaire,
André Kamman,
Gianluca Sartori

have enabled me to create a SQL Notebook with a link which will run some PowerShell to create a SQL Notebook which will have all of the Diagnostic Queries in it.

You could possibly use something like it for your incident response SQL Notebook.

It’s also cool that GitHub renders the notebook in a browser (You can’t run PowerShell or T-SQL from there though, you need Azure Data Studio!)

https://github.com/SQLDBAWithABeard/Presentations/blob/master/2019/Berlin%20SQL%20User%20Group/04%20-%20Glenn%20Berry%20Notebook.ipynb