What BASH and SSH Mean for Windows Systems Administration
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@Thranx said:
This article seems to have been written by someone who doesn't do windows administration, and is looking from the outside in, not understanding its power nor how it has vastly changed administration in the past decade. The claim that powershell has languished is a joke. Real windows admins after about 10-15 minutes of fiddling, shouted for joy and immediately burned all their VBS books. Warmed by the pire of the past they saddled up to that magical blue window and changed their work lives forever.
How many Windows Administators have you worked with? Go on Spiceworks.... almost no one uses PowerShell. Some do, lightly, but very lightly. To the point that we'd almost say that they were not using it.
How many enterprises have you worked in? I've worked in some pretty big Windows environments with $200K+ Windows Admins... none using PowerShell (or RSAT or a lot of other things.)
You define "real Windows Admins" by a bar so high, almost no one qualifies. I agree that it would be great, but find me these Windows Admins, where are they? I know a few, but only a handful.
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@Thranx said:
If a windows admin isn't using powershell... move along, they're not a windows admin, they're a novice or a hobbyist, or someone at a small company that does 37 other things in addition to adding user accounts twice a month to their Small Business Edition 2008R2 server that also has their GP and Exchange instance running on it (tho, that's the guy that should be making the most of PS)
This is just semantics. I get it. But you are just supporting the article. You are just shifting the definition of the wording. That's fine. But the Windows world doesn't agree with you. The Linux one, does.
You can say that they are only hobbyists, but they are Windows' bread and butter. They are 90% of the people with the titles and the jobs. They are the ones filling the job queues and job submission forms. They get hired because they are everywhere.
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@Thranx said:
Powershell IS windows administration. To claim otherwise is intentional ignorance.
The problem here is that this is very much attacking the vast majority of Windows Administrators. Or at least people who believe themselves to be.
In the Linux world, this bar is held and no one would suggest that using a GUI was doing Linux administration. But find me Windows Admins that are dedicated to not installing a GUI and doing everything from PS. I know so few. Sure, you can say that that means that nearly all Windows is run by non-admins, just hobbyists. And there is nothing wrong with that, I do the same saying that most businesses are businesses but hobbies.
But you have to be aware... the Windows world, at large, doesn't agree. That doesn't make you wrong, but you are taking the path less travelled.
But I don't think that your position changes the meaning or value of the article, it's purely semantics and only changes the semantics of the article.
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"Windows Server continues to suffer from a culture push to use the GUI"
This is actually 100% wrong. If you talk to the server team or have installed server since 2012 r2 at all, the default option in 2012 r2 is no gui. The default in 2016 will be heavily pushed no gui. And the core technology that will be driving all the configuration of the servers?Powershell.
I agree with this statement
"This may be the move that prepares Microsoft to recycle its ecosystem, to dump the existing global pool of administrators and shake up IT bringing their own culture in line with their competition, making themselves far more viable for the world of cloud computing and removing decades of kruft that has collected around their culture and ecosystem."Except the tool that they will build all their admins on is powershell.
Have you looked at any one program from microsoft in the past few years? The exchange team has made it so you MUST use powershell. You cannot manage exchange without it. DSC is powered by powershell. Server configuration and automation - again - powershell.
Even AD tools are now powershell based.Remote management through winrm is a reality and many many admins use it. It is those admins that refuse to use it that are becoming extinct - because most people realize that doing things the old manual way is a waste of time and resources.
The linux subsystems will be great - for managing linux devices. Outside of that it's just another shell to use to interface with the hard drive. Since the bash system itself will NOT be able to interface with the rest of the system.
Oh and the SSH capabilities that were being touted about - that is a powershell feature in server 2016 (and powershell 5.1) as well.
This linux subsystem on windows will be useful in certain situations only - and only in the right environments.
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Forgot to mention - the SSH subsystem will be available without needing to activate/install the linux subsystem. Again through powershell.
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@Dashrender Winrm uses encryption - and uses secure kerebros authentication - its a great remote administration tool actually.
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@Carnival-Boy
There are a few things wrong with powershell but complex no. All commands are always in the form of verb-noun, and on all commands you can always use get-help to see the syntax and examples of the command. What the author fails to realize is that everything returned from the shell (even though it looks like text) is an object. It is something those unfamiliar with powershell don't understand. In that regard it is more reliable than BASH and easier to work with. Having worked in both environments - I prefer powerhsell over BASH any day. There are a few times when BASH can come to the rescue but those are far and few between. When I need to manage linux - I of course use Bash and then retreat from there as quickly as possible.Give me objects - not text. -
@pdearmen said:
"Windows Server continues to suffer from a culture push to use the GUI"
This is actually 100% wrong. If you talk to the server team or have installed server since 2012 r2 at all, the default option in 2012 r2 is no gui. The default in 2016 will be heavily pushed no gui. And the core technology that will be driving all the configuration of the servers?I've worked with some big Windows server teams in this era. No matter what the best practices from the Microsoft corporate world are, the Windows culture remains one of GUIs. I talk to tons of Windows-only people every day and the idea that you could realistically run GUI-less is so rare and foreign as to almost not exist.
Microsoft is driving this, but the culture is resisting. Hence the point of this article.
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@pdearmen said:
Remote management through winrm is a reality and many many admins use it. It is those admins that refuse to use it that are becoming extinct - because most people realize that doing things the old manual way is a waste of time and resources.
I agree that they will become extinct, that's the point of this article. but I do not agree, from observation of thousands of Windows admins across the field, the old way is still heavily entrenched and the culture is so deep and socially accepting of being a waste of time that Microsoft has to push hard to change this.
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@pdearmen said:
The linux subsystems will be great - for managing linux devices.
Will it? Maybe, but I don't see it as being better than Putty at that point. Putty is so good and the WLS is just... a really heavy Putty really. I mean there are some features that would be nice, but boy are they trivial.
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@pdearmen said:
Oh and the SSH capabilities that were being touted about - that is a powershell feature in server 2016 (and powershell 5.1) as well.
So, this is a guess, wouldn't the lack of BASH integration into Windows and SSH in PS mean that PS would be the way to manage Linux from Windows?
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@pdearmen said:
There are a few things wrong with powershell but complex no. All commands are always in the form of verb-noun, and on all commands you can always use get-help to see the syntax and examples of the command. What the author fails to realize is that everything returned from the shell (even though it looks like text) is an object.
How did "the author" miss that everthing is an object when that was actually part of the point? I didn't just not miss it, it was part of the theme.
BASH is simpler because it has a better interface design. It returns what it shows, no trickery. PS returns an object but shows text. Get a screen of text and try to parse it and the parser doesn't work. That's basic flawed user interface design. It's not intuitive and the visual output does not match the real output.
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I don't disagree that the object model is more powerful, something again that I have been pointing out (so could not have missed it.) But more powerful here also increases the barrier to entry and makes it that much harder for the Windows culture to adapt to. Hence, again, the article.
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@pdearmen I think that we agree on all but one point. I think you misunderstood the article and took it to mean I didn't understand PowerShell but then you went on to basically repeat the foundation of the article.
What we differ on is.... the current state of Windows culture. You point to Microsoft's behaviour, but I point to Windows Admin in the field.
The culture of the admin space is influenced by, but not determined by, Microsoft. Microsoft has been trying to do good things for a long time, like I've stated repeatedly. But the culture of Windows users in the field does not mimic this. Certainly some have adapted, but many?
Between daily conversations in places like Spiceworks (which has much higher "new poster" turnover than here) shows that almost no one uses these tools in the SMB space and first hand experience in the MSP and consulting space supports this - I've yet to come upon a shop that uses PS beyond where it is absolutely required. Are they out there? Of course. We have PS people on staff. But for the average Windows Admin this is so rare I've almost never met one in the field, yet meet many thousands of Windows Admins.
Surprisingly, I've found more often Linux people doing PowerShell for their Windows counterparts, still rare, but I've seen this more often than I've seen Windows Admins using PowerShell themselves.
I've worked with large Wall St. investment firms that were very Windows-focused shops, with $200K+ Windows Admins across the board and none used PS and when the UNIX teams asked about the use of tools like RSAT the team actually didn't even know that Microsoft had remote management toolsets like that!
Working on Wall St. and consulting with a large number of companies and doing an incredible amount of online consulting and working with posters - probably the most of any consultant in the field... I have yet to have someone running GUI-less in the wild. Real world, massive level "survey", the culture just isn't doing it. And this includes systems set up and built by Microsoft's own team for firms that prefer GUI-less!! Even MS' own consultants push the GUI. Maybe they don't state that, but their actions are GUI based.
This is the point... that in the field, the culture of Windows Admins is too heavily focused on the GUI and Microsoft lip service isn't changing that. In the real world, PS as a real admin tool and not just "installed for when we have no other choice" and GUI-less Windows administration remains a novelty. The culture of the Windows Admin world is to be accepting of the GUI dependencies and to ignore the fact that this is inefficient.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I've worked with large Wall St. investment firms that were very Windows-focused shops, with $200K+ Windows Admins across the board and none used PS and when the UNIX teams asked about the use of tools like RSAT the team actually didn't even know that Microsoft had remote management toolsets like that!
Wait, what? There are Windows Admins earning over $200k who don't know what RSAT is? Really?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I've worked with large Wall St. investment firms that were very Windows-focused shops, with $200K+ Windows Admins across the board and none used PS and when the UNIX teams asked about the use of tools like RSAT the team actually didn't even know that Microsoft had remote management toolsets like that!
Wait, what? There are Windows Admins earning over $200k who don't know what RSAT is? Really?
I kid you not. They were deploying so many things haphazardly breaking RSAT compatibility that they have never even researched it. Literally my first day at this massive firm and I asked about that decision making and a room full of Windows Admins, including their manager, looked at my like deer in the headlights and asked what RSAT was.
Seriously.... no clue how this happens yet, it really does.
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I suppose that would be a benefit of insisting on certs when recruiting. It wouldn't make them good at their jobs, but it would at lease ensure that they have heard of the basics.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I suppose that would be a benefit of insisting on certs when recruiting. It wouldn't make them good at their jobs, but it would at lease ensure that they have heard of the basics.
Very much so. That's something that I've mentioned when speaking to people about cert value to the vendor - they are a strong means of educating and indoctrinating their user base. They don't force people to use the tools, but they ensure that people are aware of the vendor's intended means of working.
There are tons of Windows things I would never have found on my own but know because they were in the certification process. Some are useful, some I've never used. But at least I am aware of them.
Certification helps with standardizing the field.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I've worked with large Wall St. investment firms that were very Windows-focused shops, with $200K+ Windows Admins across the board and none used PS and when the UNIX teams asked about the use of tools like RSAT the team actually didn't even know that Microsoft had remote management toolsets like that!
Wait, what? There are Windows Admins earning over $200k who don't know what RSAT is? Really?
I kid you not. They were deploying so many things haphazardly breaking RSAT compatibility that they have never even researched it. Literally my first day at this massive firm and I asked about that decision making and a room full of Windows Admins, including their manager, looked at my like deer in the headlights and asked what RSAT was.
Seriously.... no clue how this happens yet, it really does.
This makes me think those people were all there before Windows was brought in house, and that they have never hired anyone from the outside to be on the team who could have brought that knowledge with them and share it amongst the group.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
I suppose that would be a benefit of insisting on certs when recruiting. It wouldn't make them good at their jobs, but it would at lease ensure that they have heard of the basics.
Very much so. That's something that I've mentioned when speaking to people about cert value to the vendor - they are a strong means of educating and indoctrinating their user base. They don't force people to use the tools, but they ensure that people are aware of the vendor's intended means of working.
There are tons of Windows things I would never have found on my own but know because they were in the certification process. Some are useful, some I've never used. But at least I am aware of them.
Certification helps with standardizing the field.
You're the lucky one with a near eidetic memory. I'm sure I've been exposed to way more than I'll ever remember from my cert testing days.
