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Many, many groups to create - how can I?

I apologise up front as this frustrates me. We tend to install / start to use and then investigate the best way how-to afterwards. I believe that use of the SDK and / or powershell scripts, etc would potentially achieve what we need in this situation, but neither I, nor others in the team are users of SDK's, scripts, etc

I have seen: Intro to API, SDK & SWQL after I'd asked: Uninitiated to the SDK (to which I'd still appreciate replies) and am going through it slowly but I don't believe I will be able to get anywhere near up to speed quickly enough to do what is necessary. So to try and help alleviate much repetition by me (primarily) ...

So this is one of those situations where we are told 'do' and no thought as to the how or if we are trained / capable...

Senior management want an ASAP completion of the following:

Creation of >500 groups and sub-groups.

Creation of the same number of custom properties matching the above group names.

On the presumption I already have the group names in a CSV or text format, can anyone detail how can I acheive this without knowing how to write or edit scripts, etc?

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Accepted answers

mesverrum

So this is a link to a chunk of a script that I use all the time to build out a group/subgroup tree.

MyPublicWork/AppAndAppRoleGroupBuilder.ps1 at master · Mesverrum/MyPublicWork · GitHub

The idea is that I have a pair of node custom properties called Applications and ApplicationsRole, i also have those same property names for my SAM apps. The script goes through and figures out every distinct application, checks if there is a group by the same name, if not it makes it. Then within each application it checks for every distinct role to see if it needs to create a subgroup for those roles.

I find it makes a lot more sense to populate the custom properties first and then build the groups based on those values than any other way of trying to get it done.

All comments

mesverrum

So this is a link to a chunk of a script that I use all the time to build out a group/subgroup tree.

MyPublicWork/AppAndAppRoleGroupBuilder.ps1 at master · Mesverrum/MyPublicWork · GitHub

I find it makes a lot more sense to populate the custom properties first and then build the groups based on those values than any other way of trying to get it done.

stuartd

Thank you for this and the tip about group creation order.

As with my other post, I know I need to dig into this but all I need is time

adam.beedell

Definitely a choice between "Do it the long way" and "Learn the SDK", The latter of which is also kinda the long way if you're starting out.

It's not too bad

I cant imagine 500+ custom properties is great for your database. I'm guessing you want a site or service value on everything with 500+ possible values? If so that's less of a big deal. Import's from .csv are super-easy.

Guide:

Install SWQL Studio
Install Powershell Version 5
Find a guide to install Chocolatey -> Set self-signed scripts to be OK -> Set powershellgallery imports up -> Import-module SWISpowershell
If you're creating these groups based off something in solarwinds already, get your query working in SWQL Studio first. Have a look at how the databases are laid out. Click on the purple icons under Orion.Groups, these are Verbs, you'll use em later. If you double-click a Verb and wait a min you'll get a form with exactly what it needs to work.

In your FROM statement put a letter afterwards to make an alias representing the database reference, and then use that letter every time.

No idea how people get stuff working otherwise.

eg:

SELECT n.Caption, cp.Maintenance_window_start
FROM Orion.Nodes n
JOIN Orion.NodesCustomProperties cp on n.NodeID = cp.NodeID

5. Make your powershell script, it goes like so:

Create a credentials file
Get connected with "$SwisConnection = Connect-SWIS -Hostname $hostname -Credential $credentialfile"
Do the query using "Get-Swisdata $SwisConnection" then whatever worked in SWQL studio in quotes
Make a ForEach loop or something
Make the groups with "Invoke-Swisverb -Swisconnection $Swisconnection -verb CreateContainer -arguments" followed by values in a Hash Table with what you want it to do

I think that's about right anyway

stuartd

Thank you Adam - most helpful and insightful.

achrry1

Here's a script I created to create groups based on node location.

$hostname = 'localhost'

if (!$creds) {

$creds = Get-Credential # display a window asking for credentials

}

$swis = Connect-Swis -Credential $creds -Hostname $hostname

# CREATING A NEW GROUP

# Creating a new group with initial Cisco and Windows devices.

$group = get-swisdata $swis @"

select distinct n.city

from orion.nodesCustomProperties n

left join orion.Container c on c.name = n.city

where c.name is null and n.city not in ('')

order by n.city

$city = get-swisdata $swis "

select n.city

from Orion.NodesCustomProperties n

Where n.city IS NOT NULL

group by n.city

order by n.city

foreach ($city in $group)

{

$members = @(

@{ Name = $city; Definition = "filter:/Orion.Nodes[CustomProperties.City='$city']"}

)

$groupId = (Invoke-SwisVerb $swis "Orion.Container" "CreateContainer" @(

# group name

"$city",

# owner, must be 'Core'

"Core",

# refresh frequency

60,

# Status rollup mode:

# 0 = Mixed status shows warning

# 1 = Show worst status

# 2 = Show best status

# group description

"",

# polling enabled/disabled = true/false (in lowercase)

"true",

# group members

([xml]@(

"<ArrayOfMemberDefinitionInfo xmlns='http://schemas.solarwinds.com/2008/Orion'>",

[string]($members |% {

"<MemberDefinitionInfo><Name>$($_.Name)</Name><Definition>$($_.Definition)</Definition></MemberDefinitionInfo>"

}

"</ArrayOfMemberDefinitionInfo>"

)).DocumentElement

)).InnerText

}

rpena001

This script has just saved me a ton of time. I run across projects very often that require dozens of new groups and having to manually create them well let's just say it ain't fun. Now instead of reading the info from the CP table if I can get it to use a file it avoids a chicken or egg issue.

Thanks again for the code