Communicate with a Powershell service executable

PowerShell Tools
1

Hello Ironsman’s,

Is there a easy and secure way to communicate service, that’s created with Powershell Pro Tools? As a simple example:

I created a tool, that will run a code to check multiple repository’s if a package must be installed, updated or removed or skipped. It’s a small executable around 6 MB (I think), but the tool checks around 60 different packages.

This tool runs at startup and checks every 2 hours if any new package is available, but a small executable package from “6 MB x 60 packages” = “360 MB” every 2 hour and I want to try to set it up as a service.

So it doesn’t need to load the “6 MB x 60 packages” = “360 MB” every 2 hours again, and again and again. There is not a performance problem, but I think a service that’s receiving a command and outputs the result will save a lot resources and will make it faster.

And it needs to be a executable, the main deployment tools will ask the code to check a package id, on a repository and the tool will run and returns just simple a exit code (1 install, 2 update and 3 remove).

Also I can think for more scenario’s I can create and use a Powershell service to communicate with. So I hope someone have a quick and simple tip for me, before I spend hours and late night on something I think someone already knows.

Please let me know, when it’s finished I can share the code’s.

Kind regards,
ARKO

2

Hi Arko
I’m not sure where the communication bit comes into play, do you mean in addition to the service running every 2 hours, you would like to also have the ability to tell it to check for package updates on demand?
Cheers
Keir

3

You can use Named Pipes to communicate between processes or scripts. I use it to trigger an action from a running script as a Service. Let me know if you are interested in exploring this to send you a sample code.