how to format Powershell output in specific way?

Question

I need to scan my network for specific processes on servers. I've done this script:

28..31 | ForEach-Object { Get-Process -ComputerName "192.168.0.$_" -Name svc* }

Now how can I format output so it shows on which IP address found process shown? Thank you.

mklement0 · Accepted Answer

I suggest switching to PowerShell's remoting, because:

it provides a framework for executing any command remotely - rather than relying on individual cmdlets to support a -ComputerName parameter and uses a firewall-friendly transport.
it will continue to be supported in PowerShell [Core] v6+, where the cmdlet-individual
-ComputerName parameters aren't supported anymore; this obsolete remoting method uses an older, less firewall-friendly form of remoting that the - obsolete since v3 - WMI cmdlets also use (the latter were replaced by the CIM cmdlets).

It is therefore better to consistently use the firewall-friendly PowerShell remoting with its generic remoting commands (Invoke-Command, Enter-PSSession, ...).

If you use Invoke-Command to target (multiple) remote computers, the objects returned automatically contain and display the name of the originating computer, via the automatically added .PSComputerName property:

# Create the array of IP addresses to target:
$ips = 28..31 -replace '^', '192.168.0.'

# Use a *single* Invoke-Command call to target *all* computers at once.
# Note: The results will typically *not* reflect the input order of
#       given IPs / computer names.
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $ips { Get-Process -Name svc* }

You'll see output such as the following - note the PSComputerName column:

Handles  NPM(K)    PM(K)      WS(K)     CPU(s)     Id  SI ProcessName  PSComputerName
-------  ------    -----      -----     ------     --  -- -----------  --------------
   1013      18     7464      13732      52.72      8   0 svchost      192.168.0.30
...

Note that you can suppress automatic display of the .PSComputerName property with Invoke-Command's -HideComputerName parameter. However, the property is still available programmatically, which allows you to do the following:

Invoke-Command -ComputerName $ips { Get-Process -Name svc* } -HideComputerName |
  Format-Table -GroupBy PSComputerName

This yields display output grouped by computer name / IP:


   PSComputerName: 192.168.0.30

Handles  NPM(K)    PM(K)      WS(K)     CPU(s)     Id  SI ProcessName
-------  ------    -----      -----     ------     --  -- -----------
   1013      18     7464      13732      52.72      8   0 svchost    
...


   PSComputerName: 192.168.0.28

Handles  NPM(K)    PM(K)      WS(K)     CPU(s)     Id  SI ProcessName
-------  ------    -----      -----     ------     --  -- -----------
   1007      17     7112      12632      65.45     11   0 svchost    
...

If you wanted to sort by IP address before grouping, you could insert
| Sort-Object { [version] $_.PSComputerName }^[1] before the Format-Table call.
For sorting by computer names, just
| Sort-Object PSComputerName would do.

^{[1] Casting to [version] is a trick to ensure proper sorting of IP addresses; IP address strings can be interpreted as [version] (System.Version) instances, and such instances are directly comparable, using the numeric values of the version components (first by .MajorVersion, then by .MinorVersion, ...)}

how to format Powershell output in specific way?

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