Am I getting too greedy with test-netconnection -computername .... cmdlet?

Question

PowerShell novice here wants to know If/How I can execute this cmdlet with Servers.txt being a simple list 8 servers in a list?

Test-NetConnection -ComputerName Get-Content (C:\Temp\SCOM\Servers.txt) -port 5723 -Informationlevel Detailed | Out-File C:\Temp\SCOM\Test-NetConnection_port5723.txt

I get this error: Test-NetConnection : A positional parameter cannot be found that accepts argument '$null'.

What am I getting wrong if there is a better way to run Test-NetConnection query against multiple servers at the same time please advise.

Thanks,

Matt

Answer 1

Hi Matt,

what if you try the otehr way arround, like suggested here:

One-liner : Test-Connection for multiple computers in Powershell
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/One-liner-Test-Connection-373858ef

get-content servers.txt | % {new-object psobject -property @{ComputerName=$_; Reachable=(test-connection -computername $_ -quiet -count 1)} }  

Here another one, a bit more sophisticated (more checks):

PowerShell Tip of the Week: Check connectivity to multiple servers
check-connectivity-multiple-servers-specific-port-using-powershell

Does this help?

Regards,
Stoyan

Answer 2

StoyanChalakov already helped you to get the result you wanted, but nobody's explained why what you originally tried failed to work.

1. Read the help for the Test-Connection cmdlet. The -ComputerName parameter accepts a single value, not an array of values (which is what Get-Content would have returned.
2. By placing only "C:\temp\SCOM\servers/txt" within parentheses you told PowerShell to evaluate the expression. On your system, it opened NotePad.exe and displayed the contents of the file! That's because the .txt file extension is associated with the NotePad executable.
3. If, on some other cmdlet that does accept an array of values, you wanted to use the contents of a file, place the parentheses around the entire Get-Content (e.g. "(Get-Content c:\temp\SCOM\servers.txt)"

Answer 3

Thank You Stoyan!

Doing it the other way around putting Get-Content first then | cmdlet worked.