I did the following ps1 script:

Import-Module ActiveDirectory
Get-ADComputer -Filter "OperatingSystem -Like '*Windows Server*' -and Enabled -eq 'True'" | Select-Object Name, DNSHostName | ConvertTo-Json | Out-File "C:\adServers.json"

The output is:

[
    {
        "Name":  "exampleServer1",
        "DNSHostName":  "exampleServer1.domain.com"
    },
    {
        "Name":  "exampleServer2",
        "DNSHostName":  "exampleServer2.domain.com"
    } ]

It generates a list with all the objects that are described as "Windows Servers". But what i want to achieve is:

I will do more of this, but instead of Windows Servers i will also include lists with Linux Servers, and some other devices.

I also need that one object contains the value IP Address. (Name, DNSHostName, IP Address)

Since i will gather multiple devices with different descriptions, i need a title for each list i generate. Below a example for easier understanding...

Here's what i want to achieve, the output would be on the following JSON format:

{
    "Linux Servers": [{
            "Name": "exampleServer3",
            "DNSHostName": "exampleServer3.domain.com",
            "IP": "192.168.1.3"
        },
        {
            "Name": "exampleServer3",
            "DNSHostName": "exampleServer3.domain.com",
            "IP": "192.168.1.3"
        }
    ],
    "Windows Servers": [{
            "Name": "exampleServer1",
            "DNSHostName": "exampleServer1.domain.com",
            "IP": "192.168.1.1"
        },
        {
            "Name": "exampleServer2",
            "DNSHostName": "exampleServer2.domain.com",
            "IP": "192.168.1.2"
        }
    ]
}

Does anyone knows how can i improve my code in order to do that? I'm working on this because i will use it as a Discovery Rule for Zabbix Monitoring Software.

I don't really know on how or where to start. Any tips or suggestion is really appreciate it...

PS: I will keep updating this answer with the codes i come up with, and all the tests i do.

Thanks in advance...

CodePudding user response：

You can use the Group-Object cmdlet to group computers by their .OperatingSystem property, which allows you to construct an ordered hashtable that translates to the desired JSON structure:

Import-Module ActiveDirectory

# Initialize an ordered hashtable that will collect the groups.
$orderedHash = [ordered] @{}

Get-ADComputer -Filter "Enabled -eq 'True'" -Property DNSHostName, IPv4Address, OperatingSystem | 
  Group-Object OperatingSystem | # See below re higher-level grouping.
  ForEach-Object {
    # Add an entry named for the current group (OS)
    # with the array of the group's members as the value.
    $orderedHash[$_.Name] = 
      @($_.Group | Select-Object Name, DNSHostName, @{ Name='IP'; Expression='IPv4Address'})
  }

# Convert to JSON and save to a file.
$orderedHash | 
  ConvertTo-Json -Depth 3 | # !! -Depth is needed to avoid truncation
    Set-Content -Encoding Utf8 C:\adServers.json

Mathias' helpful answer shows how to create groups explicitly, based on individually filtered Get-ADComputer calls, which allows arbitrary, higher-level groupings, as well as limiting processing to only computers of interest.

If processing all (enabled) computers is desired, you can achieve higher-level grouping with a tweak to the above solution too, by passing a script block ({ ... }) that performs the mapping as the (positionally implied) -Property argument.

E.g., instead of Group-Object OperatingSystem, you could to the following:

Group-Object {
  switch -Wildcard ($_.OperatingSystem) {
    '*Windows*' { 'Windows Servers' }
    '*Linux*'   { 'Linux Servers' }
    Default     { 'Others' } 
  }
}

CodePudding user response：

mklement0's excellent answer shows you how to automatically group the computers by the OperatingSystem property and construct the resulting JSON based on those.

But what if you want a different label for each group, or you want some of them grouped together?

If you know how you want to label them up front, you can organize each group into a hashtable and associate the query filter you want to use for each:

$OSGroups = @{
  'LinuxServers' = "OperatingSystem -Like '*Windows Server*' -and Enabled -eq 'True'"
  'WindowsServers' = "OperatingSystem -Like '*Windows Server*' -and Enabled -eq 'True'"
}

Now we just need to use each of those entries to fetch the relevant computers and add them to a property named for the key (eg. WindowsServers) on an output object:

# prepare another hashtable to hold all the information
$outputData = [ordered]@{}

# loop throw the different groups of computers you want to report on
foreach($kvp in $OSGroups.GetEnumerator())
{
  $groupName = $kvp.Key
  $groupFilter = $kvp.Value

  # Assign the output for the given filter to the appropriate entry in our output dictionary
  $outputData[$kvp.Key] = Get-ADComputer -Filter $kvp.Value -and Enabled -eq 'True'" | Select-Object Name, DNSHostName
}

# this will now produce the desired output format
$outputData |ConvertTo-Json -Depth 3 |Set-Content path\to\out.json