So how do I start up a dashboard from current directory?

PowerShell Universal
1

Hey all,

So how do we start a dashboard from current directory?
I want to do what I did in 2.9, I dont want to “Install” stuff, atleast not other than the module itself.
I then want to ad hoc spin ud dashboard from my scripts/directory.

Do we really need to have Universal installed locally in each directory again? :slight_smile: just as we were getting rid of it :slight_smile: (as it would autoload it from the module store.)

What am I missing? :slight_smile:

2

@McAndersDK
you can start your dashboard from any directory, if you have psu use import dashboard button and fill in the required information including the path to your dashboard.

3

So a step by step guide I guess:

install-module Universal
import-module Universal

Then what?

4

Fresh installation of psu have 0 dashboards, when you first create or import a dashboard psu will generate a file in program data under universal automation called dashboard with values you have entered from step 1 including you choice of frame work so with import dashboard vs add dashboard you can point to your original location and dashboard file u want so psu can launch your dashboard.

5

yeah that is not what I want.

it seems that PU is now more of a “Server application” than what UD were.
as UD supported AD Hoc dashboards to be run and distributed in a single directory.

it seems I would need to find another way to support the “web UI” of powershell scripts, atleast if I want this to be something that could live on client pc’s.
it seems PODE could replace UD for this.

6

you are correct PSU is a collection of api , ud, universal automation app hosting but so far with my testing even with v2 frame work its still not very trusted in prod env and that might take time before it becomes stable enough for prod use.

7

Not yet converted to PSU so not sure if I go t this correctly.
We run Dashboards from a folde. The module resides in the folder and keeps UD ‘contained’ like that
If we need to test our Dashboard with a new version or nightly build, we just copy the folder and put the righ module files in that new folder and run a Dashboard from there. UD is nicely contained like that.

Did I understand that PSU will not support this method of working?

8

I want to be clear that although PSU is not a PowerShell module, it is designed to be configured by code, just like UD.

Here’s some information on how it works: https://docs.ironmansoftware.com/config/about#idempotent-configuration

If you wanted to test a new version of PSU, you could start it up and point to the PS1 files that dictate the configuration of the PSU instance. This means you could effectively clone a repo like this one: https://github.com/ironmansoftware/universal-templates/tree/master/active-directory and then start up PSU and it would be configured with the PS1 files from the repo. No need to do any manual configuration of the PSU server. It’s also how PoshUD.com is running now. It has a set of PS1s that are layered into the docker container before starting the server and then just picks up the configuration from those files.

I’ll do a blog post about this to clear up some of the confusion around this with PSU. I think we should also enhance the Start-PSUServer cmdlet to make it easier to start up ad-hoc instances of PSU.