DSC Resource Kit Release December 2016

We just released the DSC Resource Kit!

Since our last release on November 2, we have added 1 new module, AuditPolicyDsc, which allows you to edit your audit policy subcategories and options. Thank you to Adam Haynes for this great new module!

Outside of the DSC Resource Kit, we also recently published an update to GPRegistryPolicy in the PowerShell Gallery. The latest version now includes a DSC resource to help you locally manage policy registry keys.

We have also added two new maintainers to the DSC Resource Kit:

• Johan Ljunggren (xSqlServer)
• Daniel Scott-Raynsford (xAdcsDeployment, xCertificate, xNetworking, xStorage)

These guys have shown outstanding dedication to their modules and continue to be invaluable contributors to the DSC Resource Kit. Congrats!

This release includes updates to 15 DSC resource modules, including 5 new DSC resources. In these past 6 weeks, 101 pull requests have been merged and 43 issues have been closed, all thanks to our amazing community!

We are holding the release of xPSDesiredStateConfiguration and PSDscResources until Friday (12/16) so that we can finish updating some of the in-box resources. We will update this blog post when those modules are released on Friday.

The modules updated in this release are:

• SharePointDsc
• xActiveDirectory
• xAdcsDeployment
• xCertificate
• xComputerManagement
• xDatabase
• xDscDiagnostics
• xExchange
• xFailOverCluster
• xHyper-V
• xNetworking
• xSCSMA
• xSQLServer
• xStorage
• xWebAdministration

For a detailed list of the resource modules and fixes in this release, see the Included in this Release section below.

Our last community call for the DSC Resource Kit was last week on December 7. A recording of our updates as well as summarizing notes are available. Join us next time to ask questions and give feedback about your experience with the DSC Resource Kit. Keep an eye on the community agenda for the next call date.

We strongly encourage you to update to the newest version of all modules using the PowerShell Gallery, and don’t forget to give us your feedback in the comments below, on GitHub, or on Twitter (@PowerShell_Team)!

As with past Resource Kits, all resources with the ‘x’ prefix in their names are still experimental – this means that those resources are provided AS IS and are not supported through any Microsoft support program or service. If you find a problem with a resource, please file an issue on GitHub.

Included in this Release

You can see a detailed summary of all changes included in this release in the table below. For past release notes, go to the README.md or Changelog.md file on the GitHub repository page for a specific module (see the How to Find DSC Resource Modules on GitHub section below for details on finding the GitHub page for a specific module).

How to Find Released DSC Resource Modules

To see a list of all released DSC Resource Kit modules, go to the PowerShell Gallery and display all modules tagged as DSCResourceKit. You can also enter a module’s name in the search box in the upper right corner of the PowerShell Gallery to find a specific module.

Of course, you can also always use PowerShellGet (available in WMF 5.0) to find modules with DSC Resources:

# To list all modules that are part of the DSC Resource Kit
Find-Module -Tag DSCResourceKit
# To list all DSC resources from all sources 
Find-DscResource

To find a specific module, go directly to its URL on the PowerShell Gallery:
http://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/< module name >
For example:
http://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/xWebAdministration

How to Install DSC Resource Modules From the PowerShell Gallery

We recommend that you use PowerShellGet to install DSC resource modules:

Install-Module -Name < module name >

For example:

Install-Module -Name xWebAdministration

To update all previously installed modules at once, open an elevated PowerShell prompt and use this command:

Update-Module

After installing modules, you can discover all DSC resources available to your local system with this command:

Get-DscResource

How to Find DSC Resource Modules on GitHub

All resource modules in the DSC Resource Kit are available open-source on GitHub.
You can see the most recent state of a resource module by visiting its GitHub page at:
https://github.com/PowerShell/< module name >
For example, for the xCertificate module, go to:
https://github.com/PowerShell/xCertificate.

All DSC modules are also listed as submodules of the DscResources repository in the xDscResources folder.

How to Contribute

You are more than welcome to contribute to the development of the DSC Resource Kit! There are several different ways you can help. You can create new DSC resources or modules, add test automation, improve documentation, fix existing issues, or open new ones.
See our contributing guide for more info on how to become a DSC Resource Kit contributor.

If you would like to help, please take a look at the list of open issues for the DscResources repository.
You can also check issues for specific resource modules by going to:
https://github.com/PowerShell/< module name >/issues
For example:
https://github.com/PowerShell/xPSDesiredStateConfiguration/issues

Your help in developing the DSC Resource Kit is invaluable to us!

Questions, comments?

If you’re looking into using PowerShell DSC, have questions or issues with a current resource, or would like a new resource, let us know in the comments below, on Twitter (@PowerShell_Team), or by creating an issue on GitHub.

Katie Keim
Software Engineer
PowerShell Team
@katiedsc (Twitter)
@kwirkykat (GitHub)