PowerShell script too slow - windows

Question

Need help with speeding up the script as it is going to be run against 10-20K servers. Currently tested on 4K servers and took almost 6 hours. Tried running it asjob (One parent job and 4000 childjobs, it runs fine and a lot faster but the parent job gets stuck in "running" state forever. It is because one of the childjobs stays in "Notstarted" state. Not sure how to fix that.
######################################################################################
$today = Get-Date
$path = (Get-Location).Path
$path += "\"
$date = Get-Date -uformat "%Y%m%d%H%M"
$Inputfile = $path + "Computers.txt"
$outfile = $path + "Report\" + "Certificate_Report_$date.csv"
$transcript = $path + "Logs\" + "Transcript_$date.log"
Start-Transcript $transcript
$computers = gc $Inputfile
Foreach ($c in $computers){
$cert = Invoke-Command -ComputerName $c -ScriptBlock{Get-ChildItem Cert:\localmachine -Recurse} -ErrorVariable issue -ErrorAction Continue
If ($issue){
$Connection = $Error[0].FullyQualifiedErrorId
$obj1 = New-Object Psobject
$Obj1 | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Server -Value $c
$Obj1 | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Serverconnection -Value $Connection
#$report += $obj1
$obj1 | Export-Csv $outfile -NoTypeInformation -Append -force
}
Else{$Connection = "Success"}
Foreach ($cer in $cert){
if($cer.Thumbprint -ne $null){
$obj = New-Object Psobject
$Obj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Server -Value $c
$Obj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Serverconnection -Value $Connection
$Obj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name PsParentpath -Value $Cer.PsParentpath
$Obj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Subject -Value $Cer.Subject
$Obj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Thumbprint -Value $Cer.Thumbprint
$Obj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name DnsNamelist -Value $Cer.DNSNamelist
$Obj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name FriendlyName -Value $Cer.FriendlyName
$Obj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Issuer -Value $Cer.Issuer
$Obj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Valid_From -Value $Cer.NotBefore
$Obj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Expiration_Date -Value $Cer.NotAfter
if ($cer.NotAfter -lt $today){
$status = "Expired"
}
Else{$status = "Valid"}
$Obj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Cert_Status -Value $status
$obj | Export-Csv $outfile -NoTypeInformation -Append
}
}
}
Stop-Transcript

Answer 1

The only obvious optimization that comes to mind (without parallelizing the remote queries) is to avoid | Add-Member and use [pscustomobject] syntax for the result objects:
$today = Get-Date
$date = Get-Date -uformat "%Y%m%d%H%M"
$Inputfile = (Resolve-Path "Computers.txt").Path
$outfile = (Resolve-Path "Report\Certificate_Report_$date.csv").Path
$transcript = (Resolve-Path "Logs\Transcript_$date.log").Path
Start-Transcript $transcript
$computers = gc $Inputfile
Foreach ($c in $computers) {
$cert = Invoke-Command -ComputerName $c -ScriptBlock { Get-ChildItem Cert:\localmachine -Recurse } -ErrorVariable issue -ErrorAction Continue
If ($issue) {
$Connection = $Error[0].FullyQualifiedErrorId
$obj1 = [pscustomobject]#{
Server = $c
Serverconnection = $Connection
} | Export-Csv $outfile -NoTypeInformation -Append -force
}
Else {
$Connection = "Success"
}
Foreach ($cer in $cert) {
if ($null -ne $cer.Thumbprint) {
[pscustomobject]#{
Server = $c
Serverconnection = $Connection
PsParentpath = $Cer.PsParentpath
Subject = $Cer.Subject
Thumbprint = $Cer.Thumbprint
DnsNamelist = $Cer.DNSNamelist
FriendlyName = $Cer.FriendlyName
Issuer = $Cer.Issuer
Valid_From = $Cer.NotBefore
Expiration_Date = $Cer.NotAfter
Cert_Status = if ($cer.NotAfter -lt $today) { "Expired" } else { "Valid" }
} | Export-Csv $outfile -NoTypeInformation -Append
}
}
}
Stop-Transcript
As Lee_Dailey mentions, you might also want to try offloading parallel execution of the remoting commands to Invoke-Command completely, by passing it all the computer names up front:
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $computers -ScriptBlock {Get-ChildItem Cert:\localmachine -Recurse} -ErrorAction Continue |For-EachObject {
# Process the results here
}
If you want help troubleshooting using background jobs, please post the code with which you have problems :)

Answer 2

Script posted in my question took almost 6 hours to do the same thing this modified version does in under 30 mins. Grateful for the help on this post. Final script below:
$today = Get-Date
$date = Get-Date -uformat "%Y%m%d%H%M"
$Inputfile = gc (Resolve-Path "Computers.txt").Path
$outfile = (Resolve-Path "Report\").Path + "Certificate_Report_$date.csv"
$transcript = (Resolve-Path "Logs\").Path + "Transcript_$date.log"
$failed = "Couldn't retrieve Data"
$IC_ScriptBlock = {Get-ChildItem Cert:\localmachine -Recurse}
$IC_Params = #{
ComputerName = $Inputfile
ScriptBlock = $IC_ScriptBlock
ErrorAction = 'SilentlyContinue'
}
$responding = Invoke-Command #IC_Params|ForEach-Object {
if ($null -ne $_.Thumbprint) {
[pscustomobject]#{
Server = $_.pscomputername
PsParentpath = $_.PsParentpath
Subject = $_.Subject
Thumbprint = $_.Thumbprint
DnsNamelist = $_.DNSNamelist
FriendlyName = $_.FriendlyName
Issuer = $_.Issuer
Valid_From = $_.NotBefore
Expiration_Date = $_.NotAfter
Cert_Status = if ($_.NotAfter -lt $today) { "Expired" } else { "Valid" }
} | Export-Csv $outfile -NoTypeInformation -Append
}
}
$not_responding = $Inputfile.Where({
$_ -notin $responding.Pscomputername -and "[$_]" -notin $responding.pscomputername
}).
foreach({
[pscustomobject]#{
Server = $_
PsParentpath = $failed
Subject = $failed
Thumbprint = $failed
DnsNamelist = $failed
FriendlyName = $failed
Issuer = $failed
Valid_From = $failed
Expiration_Date = $failed
Cert_Status = "NA"
} | Export-Csv $outfile -Append -NoTypeInformation
})