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Accepted
Brettski
Asked: 2014-04-16 10:01:10 +0800 CST

Can a PowerShell DSC configuration file be created from a current system build?

  • 772

Is there a way to build a PowerShell desired state configuration (DSC) configuration file from a current system? Opposed of building the entire file from scratch?

dsc

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Not directly. You'd have to approach each resource you want to module independently.

    For example, if you want to model the existing windows roles and features, you could script out something like 

    Get-WindowsFeature -ComputerName ny-web01 | 
? installed |
% {$t = ''} { $t += @"

WindowsFeature "Role-$($_.Name)"
{
    Name = '$($_.Name)'
    Ensure = 'Present'
"@ 
    if ($_.dependson)
    {
        $t += @"
    DependsOn = '[WindowsFeature]Role-$($_.Name)'
"@
    }

    $t += @'

}
'@
} {$t}

    Each resource will be unique in how you want to identify those things you want to control.

    • 6

  2. If you have a web-server, you can use Desired State Generator to create configurations for your web sites, application pools and IIS components.

    Not everything, but it could give you a head start.

    • 1

  3. There is now something called ReverseDSC which allows you to create DSC configuration files based on an existing system. It still doesn't work for all aspects of the system but supports many common scenarios.

    • 1

  4. I created a PowerShell module called DscBaseline as I didn't want to create these configurations from scratch. It builds DSC configurations based on the system it is launched from. Available at:

    https://github.com/phbits/DscBaseline

    https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/DscBaseline/1.0

    More information available in the README.md with the following excerpt showing the coverage.

    Coverage

    DscBaseline produces configurations for the following.

    1. Security Policy - Account Policy (SecurityPolicyDsc)
    2. Security Policy - Security Option (SecurityPolicyDsc)
    3. Security Policy - User Rights Assignment (SecurityPolicyDsc)
    4. Audit Policy (AuditPolicyDsc)
    5. Network (NetworkingDsc)
    6. Services (PSDscResources)
    7. *Group Policy - EXPERIMENTAL. See known issues for details. (PSDscResources)
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