I am tracking notes on PowerShell in PS1 files on my git hub repository. You can see all 100 days of code entries on the blog category page.
Somewhat continuing from yesterday, I went to look at my SpinRite virtual machines today and sure enough there they are all spinning away at exactly the pace set yesterday.
Today though when I wen to open Server Manager it popped up a little message that suggested looking into managing servers with “Windows Admin Center”. I didn’t know what that was so I clicked the link:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-center/overview
It would appear this is a something roughly equivalent to what I used for linux server experiments 5 or so years ago called WebMin: a web daemon running on a specific port that shows all sorts of things about a given server. For instances it has a live updating graph of CPU of memory usage, a specific screen with an embedded PowerShell prompt and a link to a remote desktop session. This all requires the right credentials obviously but it’s very impressive. When I last used WebMin it had some of that stuff but it required Java to do so. Like I said that was years ago. If WebMin even still exists I’m sure they’ve moved on from Java.
Actually there’s the start of plugin ecosystem and you can do things like start/stopping a service and even edit the registry though web UI.
But the thing that really impressed me is that in addition to managing a server it can bring up something of a web equivalent of “computer management” for any (Windows 10) PC on the network. There’s actually a function in there specifically for enabling remote desktop on a machine remotely. No software required or connecting through remote. Just “enable remote desktop” and boom…enabled. This can come in use at work. If they let me run it. Not sure why they wouldn’t since it’s just WMI/WinRM/PowerShell and they’re already using all sorts of PS scripts.
So that’s pretty much what I did the last 4 hours. Figure out this is a thing. I believe Windows Admin Center is a new release alongside the June edition of Windows Server 2019. So this may in fact be the very first production ready release of Windows Admin Center. And that it’s only about 2 weeks old.
Also, I can’t believe I have less than 40 days left in my days of code. It hasn’t been easy not finishing this PS book but somehow I’ve managed it…and I should probably continue in it.
For tomorrow I was thinking of hooking up my other hyper-v server. The one that is based on 2016 and has been collecting dust a while. If I can get it up and going I’ll point Windows Admin Center at it and…I guess go from there. I’m hoping I can run both machines as spinrite VM servers to go through all those drives that much faster.
That’s assuming I don’t get distracted by other things I’ve been doing. Like taking an inventory of all the hard drives I own in a spreadsheet. I think I’m up to 20 and that’s just the ones in the r520 and within arm’s reach. I still have another big stack left. I think I might have too many hard drives. Also all those laptops. Wow. I think I have a problem.
There’s also this other minor distraction of…I bought a Wii U for some reason. A local record store chain is having a going out of business clearance sale so everything was 20% off including game consoles. So it seemed like the right time. And they were out of Vitas. I would like to install custom firmware on the Wii U at some point.
Also-also there’s the steam summer sale. Bit dungeon III isn’t going to buy itself.
Tildes on the side 