powerpkg

A Windows application deployment script with an emphasis on simplicity and standardization.

Section

1. Requirement
2. Philosophy
3. Package File
4. Script Configuration
5. Package Directory Structure
6. Result
7. Debugging

Requirement

Before reading through this documentation, please note that a minimum of PowerShell 2.0 is required to utilize this project. However, PowerShell 3.0+ is recommended.

Philosophy

One script to perform all functions.

The sole purpose of powerpkg is to enable maintainability when managing application deployments on the Windows platform. This allows an administrator to consolidate an unsustainable collection of unique scripts into one PowerShell script.

Modifying the script itself is not necessary, as it processes custom instructions, or task entries, in an accompanying JSON and/or CSV package file, leaving the original codebase of said script intact.

However, powerpkg was purposely designed to process one package file per directory. For this reason, a package file should only fulfill one specific purpose, such as performing the installation of an application, and remain accompanied by a replicated variant of the script inside a separate directory, forming a package.

Package File

Script Configuration

The script configuration file (powerpkg.conf) is not required for the utilization of powerpkg.ps1.

Type	Value	Description
BlockHost	Null	Prevents specified hosts from processing package files.
PackageName	Null	Allows specifying a different package name apart from the name of the directory a package resides in.
SuppressNotification	True	Prevents a balloon notification from displaying upon a successful deployment. A value of False in powerpkg.conf changes this behavior.

Package Directory Structure

Consider the following recommended package structure:

/collection
|
|-- /example_package1
|   |
|   |-- install
|   |   |
|   |   |-- package.json
|   |   |-- package.csv
|   |   |-- powerpkg.conf
|   |   +-- powerpkg.ps1
|   |
|   +-- uninstall
|       |
|       |-- package.json
|       |-- package.csv
|       |-- powerpkg.conf
|       +-- powerpkg.ps1
|
+-- /example_package2
    |
    |-- install
    |   |
    |   |-- package.json
    |   |-- package.csv
    |   |-- powerpkg.conf
    |   +-- powerpkg.ps1
    |
    +-- uninstall
        |
        |-- package.json
        |-- package.csv
        |-- powerpkg.conf
        +-- powerpkg.ps1

Within this collection, we have directory example_package1, which is associated with one particular application. However, within it lies two packages, install and uninstall. Both packages perform two different functions for example_package1. Within these packages are individual package files that hold specific instructions for their accompanying script, powerpkg.ps1, to process.

The same is true for directory example_package2.

Result

Debugging

Exit Codes:

Code	Description
1	A task entry terminated with a non-zero exit status.
2	An exception rose from a task entry.
3	Initial task entry processing failed.
4	A host has been blocked from processing package files.
5	A package file was not found.
6	No task entries were processed.
7	A task entry is missing required information.