CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershellfor-looppowershell-2.0powershell-3.0powershell-remoting
BenK
BenK

Reputation: 11

Search through a list of computers to find a string in a file with ForEach- Powershell

I am trying to find a string in the hosts files of computers in a text file. I want to check each machine in the text file for the change in the hosts file.

For security purposes, I cannot put the actual string I am searching for. I am very new to PowerShell, and I tried to do this in CMD, but I could not get the output I wanted.

$sys = Get-Content .\Systems.txt
$Loc = "\\$sys\c$\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts"
$SearchStr = "string"
$sel = Select-String -pattern $SearchStr -path $Loc


ForEach ($System in $sys) {
    If ($sel -eq $null)
    {
        write-host $sys NotFound
    }
        Else 
    {
        write-host $sys Found
    } 
}

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2388

Answers (1)

TheMadTechnician
TheMadTechnician

Reputation: 36297

You weren't too far off, you just needed to re-think your ForEach loop a little. Move your $Loc = line within the loop so that it updates for each system, then skip the $sel = line and just put that in your If check and you're all set:

$sys = Get-Content .\Systems.txt
$SearchStr = "string"

ForEach ($System in $sys) {
    $Loc = "\\$system\c`$\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts"
    If (Select-String -pattern $SearchStr -path $Loc -Quiet)
    {
        write-host "$system Found"
    }
        Else 
    {
        write-host "$system Not Found"
    } 
}

I also escaped the dollar sign in the path for c$. I don't think it's needed in this case, but it's good practice in general when using dollar signs that you want to actually be used as such in strings like that.

Upvotes: 1

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